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Cfje  Safaor  (Eiiestton 


WASHINGTON     GLADDEN 


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THE    LABOR    QUESTION 


THE    LABOR  QUESTION 


BY 

WASHINGTON   GLADDEN 


THE    PILGRIM    PRESS 

BOSTON  NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 


Copyright,  1911 
By  Washington  Gladden 


THE  •  PLIMPTON  •  PRESS 

[ W- D • O ] 
NORWOOD  •  MASS  •  U  •  S  •  A 


\-\  T 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    The    Case    Against    the    Labor 

Union i 

II    The  Reason  for  the  Unions   .      .  41 

III  Industry  and  Democracy  •      »      •  75 

IV  Cross-lights  and  Counter-claims  115 

V    The     Church     and     the     Labor 

Question 147 


G9G3U9 


THE    CASE    AGAINST   THE 
LABOR   UNION 


I 

THE   CASE   AGAINST   THE 
LABOR   UNION 

NO  sweeping  statements  can 
be  justly  made  about  exist- 
ing relations  between  em- 
ployers and  employed.  In  many  cases 
they  are  all  that  they  ought  to  be. 
Among  employers  of  labor  there  are 
tens  of  thousands  of  just-minded, 
honorable  men  and  women  who  gov- 
ern themselves  in  all  their  dealings 
with  those  who  work  for  them  by 
the  Golden  Rule;  and  among  wage- 
workers  there  are  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  honest  and  faithful  men 
and  women  who  render  cheerful  and 
efficient  service  to  those  who  employ 
them.  We  hear  much  complaint  of 
[3] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

exasperating  conditions  in  domestic 
service,  but  if  the  story  were  told 
of  all  the  tender  and  beautiful  friend- 
ships between  families  and  their  house- 
hold helpers,  it  would  be  a  cheering 
relation.  And  it  is  still  true,  I  be- 
lieve, that  where  the  number  of  em- 
ployees is  such  that  the  employer  is 
brought  into  personal  contact  with  all 
of  them,  the  relations  are,  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases,  amicable  and  just. 
The  old  sweet  humanities  have  not 
lost  their  force,  and  where  they  have 
a  chance  they  assert  themselves  with 
power.  And  there  are  not  a  few  large 
industrial  establishments  in  which  the 
rights  of  the  people  who  work  with 
their  hands  are  thoroughly  respected. 
But  the  typical  employer  of  today 
(the  only  employer  known  to  most 
working  men)  is  not  a  human  being, 
but  a  great  corporation ;  and  the  typical 
[4] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

employee  (the  only  employee  known 
to  most  employers)  is  a  unit  of  labor 
force,  which  may  be  numbered  rather 
than  named;  and  the  only  relation 
between  the  two  is  that  of  the  "cash 
nexus,"  which  is  represented  by  the 
current  wage.  I  am  aware  that  there 
are  cases  in  which  some  effort  is  made 
to  clothe  this  economic  skeleton  v/ith 
flesh  and  blood  —  to  restore  some  sem- 
blance of  a  personal  quality  to  this 
relation  between  employer  and  em- 
ployee —  and  such  attempts  are  highly 
commendable;  but  they  do  not  count 
for  much  against  the  depersonalizing 
tendencies"  of  the  large  system  of 
industry.  All  the  important  indus- 
tries except  agriculture  are  carried  on 
in  great  establishments,  employing  hun- 
dreds, or  thousands,  or  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  laborers;  capital  is  massed  in 
great  corporations,  and  the  ownership 
[5] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

of  it  is  widely  distributed  among  in- 
vestors who  have  no  knowledge  what- 
ever of  the  people  whom  their  money 
is  employing.  These  stockholders  are 
the  real  employers.  The  directors 
and  superintendents  and  general  man- 
agers are  simply  their  agents;  and 
the  real  employers,  as  a  rule,  know 
nothing  and  care  little  about  the  wel- 
fare of  the  people  who  do  the  work. 
They  have  just  one  interest  in  the 
business,  which  is  that  the  dividends  on 
the  stock  shall  be  maintained  without 
reduction;  increased,  if  possible;  and 
paid  on  the  appointed  day.  We  all 
know  how  it  is.  I  am  a  stockholder, 
in  a  small  way,  in  one  or  two  industries, 
and  it  scarcely  occurs  to  me  to  look 
after  the  welfare  of  the  hired  laborers 
who  are  doing  the  work  of  these 
industries.     I  do  not  know  at  all  what 

wages  they  are  getting,  and  I  do  not 

[6] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

know  much  about  the  conditions  under 
which  they  are  doing  their  work. 
Perhaps  I  ought  to  know,  but  1  do 
not.  And  I  suppose  that  a  large 
majority  of  all  the  holders  of  industrial 
securities  are  no  more  conscientious  or 
watchful  of  the  interests  of  the  people 
of  whom  they  are  the  responsible 
employers  than  I  am.  When  such  is 
the  foundation  of  our  industrial  system, 
it  is  hardly  a  matter  of  wonder  that  the 
element  of  human  interest  and  personal 
friendship  should  gradually  disappear 
from  the  relation  between  employer  and 
employee. 

Another  fact  has  some  significance. 
Twenty-five  years  ago  there  was  much 
inquiry  among  employers  about  indus- 
trial partnership,  or  profit-sharing,  as 
it  was  rather  unhappily  named.  I  had 
written  something  about  it,  and  I  used 
to  get  letters  from  employers  very  fre- 
[7] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

quently  asking  about  the  working  of 
such  plans.  These  methods  are  not 
much  talked  about  in  these  days.  The 
impulse  to  associate  the  men  with  the 
masters  seems  to  have  spent  its  force. 
The  lessening  importance  of  this  fea- 
ture in  the  industries  of  the  present 
day  is  an  indication  of  the  growing 
alienation  of  the  two  classes. 

This  condition  of  estrangement  — 
this  growing  hostility  between  the 
wage-workers  and  their  employers  — 
is  the  serious  fact  with  which  the 
country  is  confronted.  The  fact  may 
be  questioned,  but  those  who  have 
been  familiar  for  thirty  years  with  the 
drift  of  public  feeling  can  have  no 
doubt  about  it.  The  relations  between 
the  men  who  work  for  wages  and  the 
men  who  pay  wages  are  distinctly  less 
friendly  than  they  were  twenty  years 

ago. 

[8] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

Who  is  to  blame  for  this?  Each 
class  blames  the  other;  probably  they 
are  both  to  blame.  There  are  not 
many  quarrels  in  which  the  fault  is 
all  on  one  side.  Let  me  see  if  I  can 
state  the  case  as  it  lies  in  the  mind 
of  the  average  employer.  There  are 
many  employers  below  the  average, 
intellectually  and  morally,  whom  I  do 
not  hope  to  convince;  there  are  some 
quite  above  the  average  who  do  not 
need  to  be  convinced;  I  am  not  trying 
to  represent  either  of  these  classes,  but 
rather  that  large  majority  whose  opin- 
ions and  practises  tend  to  prevail  in 
the  employing  class.   ' 

In  the  judgment  of  these  gentlemen, 
the  trouble  in  our  industries  is  largely 
due  to  trade-unions.  It  is  the  mis- 
conduct of  the  trade-unions  that  is 
the  cause  of  all  this  alienation  and 
hostility  which  now  prevails  in  the  in- 
[9] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

dustrial  world.  Many  of  these  gentle- 
men say  that  they  are  not  opposed  to 
trade-unions;  that  they  believe  in  them 
when  properly  constituted  and  man- 
aged. What  they  mean  by  this  we  shall 
see  in  another  article.  Others  frankly 
declare  that  trade-unionism  in  all  its 
moods  and  tenses  is  an  unmitigated 
evil ;  that  the  only  hope  for  the  country 
is  in  its  extermination.  I  have  lately 
heard  employers  who,  on  all  other 
subjects,  are  as  kind-hearted  and  fair- 
minded  as  any  men  I  know,  saying 
that,  rather  than  permit  any  kind  of 
trade-union  to  get  a  footing  in  their 
works,  they  would  close  their  factories 
and  go  out  of  business.  What  all 
these  gentlemen  chiefly  lay  emphasis 
upon  is  the  misconduct  of  the  unions, 
many  instances  of  which  are  specified. 
The  indictment  is  easily  sustained. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  the  at- 
[lo] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

tempt  to  protect  themselves  against 
oppression  the  unions  have  made  many 
rules  and  restrictions  which  are  often 
extremely  vexatious  to  all  who  deal 
with  them.  All  our  neighbors  are 
ready  with  tales  of  the  annoyances 
and  injuries  which  they  have  suffered 
by  the  enforcement  of  these  petty 
rules  by  trade-unions.  A  woman  of 
fine  intelligence  living  in  a  country 
village,  not  long  ago  rehearsed  to  me 
her  own  experience  with  a  gang  of 
men  who  were  working  on  a  drain 
that  ran  from  her  house  across  her 
lawn.  The  ditch  had  been  dug  and 
the  pipe  nearly  laid  when  their  quitting 
time  came,  at  half  past  four  in  the 
afternoon.  A  violent  storm  was  ap- 
proaching, and  the  ditch  would  be 
flooded  with  water  and  great  incon- 
venience and  expense  would  be  caused 
if  the  ditch  were  not  filled  in;  and  the 
[ii] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

good  woman  begged  these  men  to 
throw  back  the  dirt;  but  they  sat 
down  on  the  bank  and  would  not  lift 
a  finger.  She  took  up  the  shovel 
herself  and  filled  in  a  considerable  part 
of  it,  but  they  refused  to  come  to  her- 
relief.  Conduct  of  this  sort  is  not 
rare  on  the  part  of  trade-unionists, 
and  it  has  done  much,  not  only  to 
exasperate  employers,  but  to  alienate 
the  good  will  of  the  community  at 
large.  The  kind  of  rules  which  are 
often  insisted  upon,  regulating  the 
cooperation  of  the  trades,  forbidding 
a  plasterer  to  drive  a  nail  or  a  plumber 
to  do  the  simplest  task  which  belongs 
to  a  bricklayer,  rigidly  fixing  the  hours 
of  labor  and  making  it  a  misdemeanor 
for  a  workman  to  finish  a  job  if  fifteen 
minutes  of  work  remain  at  the  closing 
hour  —  all  such  petty  restrictions  are 
a  just  cause  of  complaint.     They  re- 

[12] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

quire  men  to  act  in  outrageously  dis- 
obliging and  unneighborly  ways;  they 
are  a  training  in  ill  nature  and  un- 
friendliness. Cases  frequently  come 
to  my  knowledge  of  the  behavior  of 
union  men  acting  under  the  rules  of 
their  trade,  by  which  intolerable  incon- 
venience is  inflicted,  not  only  upon 
their  employers,  but  upon  customers 
for  whom  the  work  is  done.  When  I 
hear  such  stories,  I  am  able  to  under- 
stand why  it  is  that  many  employers 
and  many  persons  who  do  not  belong 
to  the  employing  class  are  so  bitterly 
hostile  to  trade-unions.  I  do  not 
believe  that  these  petty  restrictions 
are  necessary  to  the  success  of  organ- 
ized labor.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe 
that  they  are  a  serious  hindrance  in 
the  way  of  its  progress.  The  small 
advantages  which  are  secured  by 
means  of  them  are  more  than  neutral- 
[13] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

ized  by  the  ill  will  which  they  engender 
in  the  breasts  of  those  whose  good 
will  the  unions  greatly  need. 

The  opposition  of  the  unions  to 
prison  labor  is  another  count  in  the 
indictment.  This  rests  upon  a  nar- 
row view  of  advantage  which  helps  to 
discredit  the  unions.  Here,  again,  a 
small  gain  to  a  class  is  suffered  to 
outweigh  a  heavy  loss  to  society. 
The  injury  which  prison  labor  could 
inflict  upon  organized  labor  is  incon- 
siderable; the  damage  which  would 
be  done  to  the  prisoners  by  keeping 
them  in  idleness  is  enormous.  The 
unions  greatly  injure  their  own  cause 
when  they  adopt  a  policy  which 
sacrifices  the  general  welfare  to  their 
own  interest  in  a  manner  so  flagrant. 
The  truth  is  not  so  clear  to  all  minds 
as  it  ought  to  be  that  the  selfishness 
of  classes  or  organizations  is  not  less 
li4l 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

unsocial  than  the  selfishness  of  indi- 
viduals. We  can  hardly  censure  the 
unions  very  harshly  for  not  having 
learned  this  lesson,  since  the  churches 
have  not  as  yet  learned  it.  Churches 
often  act  toward  other  churches  in  a 
manner  quite  as  heartless  as  do  trade- 
unions  toward  unorganized  labor; 
churches  often  wantonly  sacrifice  the 
interests  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  to 
their  own  sectarian  advantage.  Never- 
theless, such  conduct  is  reprehensible, 
whether  done  under  the  lead  of  the 
walking  delegate  or  the  denomina- 
tional promoter,  and  those  who  prac- 
tise it  deservedly  suffer  the  loss  of 
public  favor.  1 

It  is  often  charged  against  the  unions 
that   they   cripple    production   by   re- 
stricting the  output  of  industry  through 
deliberately  reducing  the  speed  of  their 
*  See  Appendix  I. 
[iSl 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

labor  and  conspiring  to  make  the  job 
last  as  long  as  possible.  There  are 
those  who  believe  that  it  is  the  con- 
scious policy  of  all  unionists  to  get 
the  largest  possible  wage  and  do  the 
least  possible  work  in  return  for  it. 
I  think  it  quite  possible  that  there 
are  some  working  men  who  would  re- 
gard this  as  a  legitimate  policy,  just 
as  there  are  not  a  few  employers  who 
mean  to  give  the  laborer  no  more  than 
they  must  and  to  get  out  of  him  as 
much  work  as  they  can.  Undoubtedly 
the  notion  has  prevailed  among  work- 
ing men  that  there  exists  a  definite 
amount  of  work  to  be  done,  and  that 
it  is  good  policy  for  those  who  are 
working  by  the  hour  to  use  up  as 
many  hours  as  possible  in  the  per- 
formance of  the  work.  That  policy, 
however,  does  not  control  all  union- 
ists. The  more  intelligent  among  them 
[i6] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

are  fully  aware  of  its  foolishness. 
"To  do  too  much  work,"  says  John 
Mitchell,  "is  supposed,  sometimes,  to 
be  'hogging  it,'  to  be  taking  the  bread 
out  of  another  man's  mouth.  This 
may  occasionally  be  more  or  less  true, 
although  even  in  such  cases  the  em- 
ployer has  rights  which  should  be 
respected  and  a  man  should  do  —  as 
he  ordinarily  does  do  —  a  fair  day's 
work  for  a  fair  day's  wage.  For  the 
whole  of  society,  however,  the  theory 
is  not  true.  Within  certain  limits,  the 
more  work  done,  the  more  remains  to 
be  done.  .  .  .  The  man  who  earns 
large  wages  in  a  blacksmith's  shop 
creates  a  demand  for  labor  when  he 
spends  his  wages  in  shoes,  clothes, 
furniture,  or  books;  and  a  large  pro- 
duction tends  to  make  these  products 
cheaper.  To  render  work  more  ex- 
pensive merely  for  the  sake  of  restrict- 
[17] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

ing  output  is  to  lessen  the  amount 
of  work  that  will  be  done,  and  it  is 
only  by  doing  a  fair  day's  work  that 
a  fair  day's  wage  can  be  permanently 
maintained.  The  wages  of  working 
men,  sooner  or  later,  fall  with  any 
unreasonable  restriction  on  the  out- 
put; and,  what  is  of  still  more  im- 
portance, the  habit  of  slowing  up 
work,  permanently  incapacitates  the 
workman  for  continued  and  intense 
effort."  This  extract  shows  that  one 
labor  leader,  at  least,  recognizes  the 
fatuity  of  do-lessness,  and  a  fact 
so  patent  is  not  likely  to  be  long 
concealed  from  the  rank  and  file  of 
unionists.^ 

In  one  respect  the  policy  of  restric- 
tion is  justifiable.  In  piece-work  the 
tendency  is  always  toward  an  unjust 
and    oppressive    reduction    of   wages. 

^  See  Appendix  I. 
[i8] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

The  most  rapid  and  skilful  workers 
set  the  pace,  and  the  employer  is 
inclined  to  fix  the  price  so  that  they 
can  make  only  a  reasonable  day's 
wages.  This  brings  the  average  work- 
man's earnings  down  to  a  very  low 
figure.  In  such  cases  the  protest 
of  the  unions  against  speeding  and 
price-cutting  is  not  unreasonable. 
Some  adjustments  need  to  be  made 
by  which  men  of  exceptional  skill 
may  get  the  advantage  of  their 
superior  ability  without  unfairly  low- 
ering the  compensation  of  those  who 
are  equally  faithful,  but  somewhat 
less  expert. 

It  is,  however,  in  connection  with 
the  enforcement  of  their  demands 
for  improved  conditions  by  means  of 
strikes  that  the  gravest  charges  are 
brought  against  the  unions.  There 
are  those  who  deny  the  right  of  the 
I19] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

unions  to  use  the  weapon  of  the 
strike;  who  assert  that  the  resort  to 
this  method  of  industrial  warfare  is 
wholly  unjustifiable.  The  discussion 
of  this  question  must  be  deferred 
until  the  following  chapter.  I  must 
ask  my  readers  to  let  me  assume  that 
this  right  belongs  to  organized  labor. 
Perhaps  they  may  be  willing  to  allow, 
for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  if 
one  man  may  decline  to  work  for  less 
than  a  certain  wage,  or  more  than  a 
certain  number  of  hours,  several  men 
may  unite  in  this  refusal;  and  that  it 
is  only  by  uniting  with  others  that 
any  working  man  can  secure  considera- 
tion of  his  claims.  I  do  not,  there- 
fore, admit  that  their  assertion  of  the 
right  to  strike  is  any  part  of  the  case 
against  the  unions.  At  present  I  am 
concerned  with  those  concomitants  of 

strikes  which  are   rightly  held  up   to 
[20] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

reprobation  —  the  violence  and  bru- 
tality, the  coercion  and  vandalism, 
which  frequently  attend  industrial  con- 
flicts. 

The  existence  of  such  conditions  is 
undeniable  and  deplorable,  and  the 
greater  part  of  the  odium  from  which 
unionism  is  suffering  in  the  public 
mind  is  due  to  these  conditions.  Work- 
ing men  who  take  the  places  which 
the  strikers  have  left  are  insulted, 
beaten,  sometimes  killed ;  the  property 
of  the  employer  is  destroyed;  his 
buildings  are  burned  or  blown  up  by 
dynamite;  his  business  is  assailed  by 
criminal  depredation. 

For  all  such  deeds  of  lawlessness 
there  is  neither  justification  nor  excuse. 
They  are  utterly  and  brutally  wrong; 
they  simply  mark  a  reversion  to  bar- 
barism.    Men   have   a   right   to   unite 

in  a  demand  for  better  industrial  con- 
[21] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

ditions  and  to  unite  in  a  refusal  to 
work  unless  those  conditions  are  sup- 
plied; they  have  a  right  to  dissuade 
other  men  from  taking  the  places 
which  they  have  vacated,  and  to 
use  all  the  moral  influence  at  their 
command  to  this  end;  but  when 
they  resort  to  coercion  and  violence 
in  enforcing  this  demand,  they  pass 
beyond  the  limits  of  toleration  and 
become  enemies  of  society.  There  is 
no  room  in  American  civilization  for 
practises  of  this  nature;  and  the  unions 
have  no  business  on  their  hands  more 
urgent  than  that  of  putting  an  end 
to  coercion  and  violence  in  connection 
with  strikes,  no  matter  at  what  cost 
to  themselves.  They  can  never  win 
by  these  methods.  They  succeed  only 
in  arraying  against  themselves  the 
bitter   and    determined    opposition    of 

those  classes  in  society  without  whose 

[22] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

support  they  cannot  hope  to  establish 
their  claim.  ^ 

An  intelligent  observer  called  my 
attention  the  other  day  to  what  he 
believed  to  be  a  fact  —  that  women 
of  the  educated  classes  are  almost 
universally  hostile  to  unionism.  It 
would  not  be  true  of  college  women; 
of  women  in  the  upper  social  circles 
it  may  be  true.  There  may  be  other 
explanations,  but  one  reason  for  the 
fact,  if  fact  it  be,  may  be  the  natural 
revulsion  of  the  ethical  feeling  of 
women  against  these  methods  of  bru- 
tality. The  unions  can  never  hope 
to  win  by  methods  which  array  against 
them  such  elements  of  society. 

It  is  not  the  enemies  of  unionism 
who  say  this.  The  men  who  have  the 
best  right  to  speak  for  unionism  are 
as  clear  and  positive  in  their  denuncia- 

^  See  Appendix  I. 
[23] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

tion  of  violence  as  could  be  desired. 
Only  a  few  days  ago  I  heard  a  con- 
spicuous public  teacher  say  that  the 
prominent  labor  leaders  had  never  dis- 
countenanced violence.  It  is  to  be 
feared  that  many  of  our  public  teachers 
are  not  in  the  way  of  finding  out  what 
is  really  said  by  labor  leaders.  Take 
these  words  of  John  Mitchell:    " 

"Above  all  and  beyond  all,  the 
leader  entrusted  with  the  conduct  of 
a  strike  must  be  alert  and  vigilant 
in  the  prevention  of  violence.  The 
strikers  must  be  made  constantly 
aware  of  the  imperative  necessity  of 
remaining  peaceable.  .  .  .  Under  no 
circumstances  should  a  strike  be  al- 
lowed to  degenerate  into  violence.  .  .  . 
A  single  act  of  violence,  while  it  may 
deter  a  strike-breaker  or  a  score  of 
them,  inflicts  much  greater  and  more 
irreparable  damage  upon  the  party 
[24] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

giving  than  upon  the  party  receiv- 
ing the  blow.  ...  It  is  sometimes 
claimed  that  no  strike  can  be  won 
without  the  use  of  physical  force. 
I  do  not  believe  that  this  is  true,  but 
if  it  is,  it  is  better  that  the  strike  be 
lost  than  that  it  succeed  through 
violence  and  the  commission  of  out- 
rages. The  cause  of  unionism  is  not 
lost  through  any  strike  or  through  any 
number  of  strikes,  and  if  it  were  true 
that  all  strikes  would  fail  if  physi- 
cal force  could  not  be  resorted  to, 
it  would  be  better  to  demonstrate 
that  fact  and  to  seek  remedy  in 
other  directions  than  to  permit  strikes 
to  degenerate  into  conflicts  between 
armed  men.  .  .  .  The  employers  are 
perfectly  justified  in  condemning  as 
harshly  as  they  desire  the  acts  of  any 
striker  or  strikers  who  are  guilty  of 
violence.  I  welcome  the  most  sweep- 
I25] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

ing  denunciation  of  such  acts,  and 
the  widest  pubHcity  that  may  be 
given  to  them  by  the  press." 

It  would  be  easy  to  fill  pages  with 
such  testimony  by  men  who  have  a 
right  to  speak  for  unionism.  That 
the  conduct  of  strikers  sometimes  falls 
below  this  standard  is  undeniable. 
The  trade-union  is  one  of  many  organi- 
zations whose  members  often  fail  to 
live  up  to  their  ideals.  It  is  true  that 
members  of  trade-unions  frequently 
resort  to  coercion  and  violence,  and 
more  often  connive  at  it.  When  they 
do,  they  violate  the  principles  on 
which  unionism  rests,  and  deserve  the 
reprobation  of  their  neighbors. 

Some  of  the  acts  which  are  com- 
mitted in  connection  with  strikes  are 
dastardly.  The  dynamiting  of  a  street 
car  filled  with  passengers,  or  the  ditch- 
ing of  a  train-load  of  human  beings, 
[26I 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

is  the  act  of  a  savage.  As  Mr.  Mitchell 
urges,  it  is  no  palliation  of  such  an 
enormity  to  say  that  a  strike  is  war, 
since  in  all  civilized  warfare  the  attack 
upon  non-combatants  is  considered 
infamous. 

I  hope  I  have  made  it  clear  that  the 
resort  to  violence  is  not  an  essential 
element  in  trade-unionism;  that  its 
leading  representatives  discountenance 
and  denounce  it.  Some  of  the  great- 
est and  most  successful  strikes  have 
been  attended  by  little  violence.  This 
was  true  of  the  anthracite  strike  and 
of  the  recent  strike  of  the  cloak- 
makers  in  New  York.  In  connection 
with  many  strikes  much  violence  has 
occurred,  and  it  is  the  common  habit 
of  the  newspapers  and  of  a  class  of 
social  moralists  to  charge  all  this 
upon  the  strikers.  In  the  great  ma- 
jority of  cases,  however,  the  strikers 
[27] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

have  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
Much  of  this  lawlessness  is  the  work 
of  disorderly  and  turbulent  persons 
who  have  no  interest  in  the  contest, 
but  who  seize  upon  this  opportunity 
for  indulging  their  destructive  propen- 
sities. During  the  recent  street  rail- 
way strike  in  Columbus,  Ohio,  nearly 
one  thousand  arrests,  were  made  for 
disorderly  conduct,  but  of  these  not 
more  than  five  or  six  were  of  strik- 
ing railway  employees.  All  but  one 
of  these  five  or  six  were  arrested  for 
loitering,  and  were  discharged  when 
it  was  shown  that  they  were  engaged 
in  peaceful  picketing.  One  man  was 
under  suspicion  of  having  dynamited 
a  car  in  which  were  no  passengers. 
He  is  awaiting  trial.  Yet  I  suppose 
that  the  vast  majority  of  those  who 
read    in    the    newspapers    the    highly 

colored     reports    of    the     street    car 
[28J 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

atrocities  in  Columbus  were  under 
the  impression  that  all  this  mischief 
was  done  by  the  striking  railway  men. 
That  would  be  assumed  by  nine  out 
of  ten  editors  or  preachers  who  com- 
mented on  the  news.  This  is  one  of 
the  ways  in  which  the  case  against 
unionism  is  made  up.  Public  teachers 
who  mean  to  be  just  will  exercise 
some  care  in  getting  at  the  facts 
before  they  hold  unionists  responsible 
for  all  the  mischief  that  is  done  in 
connection  with  strikes. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  strikes  are 
frequently  attended  by  a  highly  in- 
flamed state  of  public  opinion,  espe- 
cially among  the  working  classes.  This 
was  true  of  the  late  strike  in  Columbus. 
The  sections  of  our  city  inhabitated 
by  the  working  people  were  swept  by 
gusts  of  bitter  and  angry  feeling. 
It  was  not  alone  the  hoodlums  or  the 
[29] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

criminals  who  were  thus  excited;  the 
entire  body  of  respectable,  industri- 
ous working  mechanics  —  men  who 
lived  in  their  own  houses  —  shared 
in  this  indignation.  Pastors  of  Prot- 
estant churches  located  in  these  sec- 
tions told  me  that  their  congregations 
were  practically  unanimous  in  this  ex- 
pression of  resentment.  Undoubtedly 
much  of  the  disorderly  conduct  was 
the  product  of  this  superheated  feeling. 
*' Very  true,"  says  the  social  moralist; 
"therefore  the  strikers,  after  all,  are 
to  blame  for  the  violence,  for  it  is 
they  who  stirred  up  all  this  angry 
resentment."  Just  there  I  beg  to 
demur.  It  is  a  very  superficial  judg- 
ment that  sees  no  deeper  than  this. 
Such  an  outbreak  of  public  indignation 
is  due  to  no  mere  local  irritation;  it 
is    due   in   large    part   to   resentments 

that  have  become  more  or  less  chronic; 
[30] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

it  is  the  expression  of  a  discontent  that 
is  deep-seated;  it  is  the  product  of 
causes  which  the  social  moralist  would 
better  try  to  understand.  The  classes 
among  whom  this  discontent  prevails 
are  not,  as  a  rule,  "undesirable  citi- 
zens," nor  are  they  the  dupes  of  agi- 
tators or  the  tools  of  "muck-rakers." 
Very  many  of  them  are  men  to  whom 
the  methods  of  modern  financiering 
are  well  known,  and  to  whom  the 
devious  ways  of  public  service  pro- 
moters are  not  altogether  obscure. 
They  are  not  unaware  of  the  burdens 
they  are  bearing,  and  they  know  who 
have  bound  them  on  their  shoulders. 
And  they  are  sometimes  able  to  see 
in  these  labor  struggles  the  working 
of  forces  which  tend  to  their  further 
oppression.  Certain  it  is  that  the 
burdens  which  special  privilege  entails 
are  mainly  borne  by  these  very  classes. 
[31I 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

We  underrate  their  intelligence  when 
we  assume  that  they  are  not  aware 
of  this,  and  we  presume  on  their 
forbearance  when  we  ask  them  to 
ignore  it.  The  whole  country  is  up 
in  arms  against  these  abuses  of  special 
privilege,  and  we  can  hardly  wonder 
if  those  who  suffer  most  from  them 
sometimes  manifest  their  resentment 
in  ungentle  ways. 

I  agree  with  John  Mitchell  that  all 
this  is  no  justification  of  violence; 
that  force  is  no  remedy;  that  every 
act  of  brutality  damages  the  doer 
more  than  the  victim;  that  there  are 
better  weapons  for  such  contests  than 
brickbats  or  bludgeons.  I  urged  the 
striking  carmen  in  our  late  strike  to 
go  out  and  patrol  the  lines  and  pre- 
vent the  stone-throwing.  I  believe 
that  if  they  had  done  it  they  might 
have  won  their  strike.  But  I  was 
I32] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

aware  that  in  calling  on  them  for 
conduct  so  altruistic  and  magnani- 
mous, I  was  setting  before  them  an 
ideal  which  few  groups  even  of  the 
classes  supposed  to  be  superior  could 
be  induced  to  consider. 

All  that  I  now  wish  to  insist  upon, 
however,  is  that  the  strikers  in  any- 
given  labor  conflict  are  not  to  be  held 
wholly  responsible  for  the  superheated 
social  atmosphere  which  surrounds 
them,  and  which  produces  the  acts 
of  violence  by  which  strikes  are  often 
disfigured.  For  that  dangerous  social 
condition  the  people  who  are  so  eager 
to  put  down  the  violence  with  an 
iron  hand  might  often  find  themselves 
pretty  largely  to  blame.  And  in  such 
a  disturbance  the  bystander  is  some- 
times reminded  of  the  story  of  the 
wolf  who  was  going  to  devour  the 
lamb  because  the  lamb  had  roiled 
[33]  ho\\^^ 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

the  water.  I  do  not  doubt  that  the 
hot  words  of  the  strikers  in  such 
cases  often  add  fuel  to  the  flame  of 
social  discontent,  and  that  the  strike 
is  made  the  occasion  of  outbreaks  of 
disorder;  my  only  contention  is  that 
the  deeper  causes  of  this  angry  feel- 
ing must  not  be  ignored.  No  strike  in 
these  days  is  an  isolated  phenomenon 
with  a  purely  local  cause;  and  no  one 
can  rationally  deal  with  it  who  does 
not  comprehend  its  relation  to  the 
prevailing  social  unrest. 

Two  other  counts  in  the  indict- 
ment against  unionism  must  be  treated 
very  briefly.  The  first  is  the  sympa- 
thetic strike.  I  am  unable  to  join  in 
the  unqualified  condemnation  of  this 
method  of  industrial  warfare.  The 
act  of  a  trade-union  in  supporting 
an  affiliated  union  in  its  struggle  for 
better  conditions,  when  no  advantage 
[34] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

to  itself  can  be  hoped  for  as  the  re- 
sult of  its  sacrifice,  is  certainly  gener- 
ous and  heroic.  The  motive  is  not 
unworthy.  It  may  be  doubted,  how- 
ever, whether  it  is  wise  as  a  general 
rule  for  the  workers  in  one  union  to 
take  up  the  quarrel  of  another  union. 
They  may  be  supposed  to  know  the 
conditions  of  their  own  trade;  it  is 
nearly  impossible  for  them  to  know 
equally  well  the  conditions  of  other 
trades,  and  they  may  be  supporting 
demands  which  are  unjust  and  im- 
practicable. Sometimes  such  a  strike 
involves  the  violation  of  a  contract, 
expressed  or  implied,  with  their  own 
employers;  in  such  a  case  they  are  put- 
ting generosity  before  justice,  which  is 
bad  morality.  The  bituminous  coal 
miners  were  right  when  they  refused 
to  violate  their  trade  agreement  with 
the  operators  by  a  sympathetic  strike 
[35] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

in  support  of  the  anthracite  miners. 
And  Mr.  Mitchell  is  teaching  good 
doctrine  when  he  says:  "There  can 
be  no  doubt  that,  upon  the  whole  and 
in  the  long  run,  the  policy  of  striking 
in  sympathy  should  be  discouraged." 

The  other  case  referred  to  is  that 
of  the  secondary  boycott.  It  is  quite 
true,  as  the  unionists  point  out,  that 
the  boycott,  in  one  form  or  another,  is 
in  almost  universal  use.  The  with- 
drawal of  patronage  from  those  whose 
conduct,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
we  disapprove,  is  not  a  thing  unheard 
of.  It  is  by  no  means  uncommon  for 
groups,  professional  or  commercial,  to 
express  their  dislikes  after  this  man- 
ner. And  there  are  few  among  us  who 
are  in  a  position  to  throw  stones  at  a 
trade-union  which  refuses  to  patronize 
an  employer  with  whom  it  is  in  con- 
troversy. The  primary  boycott  is  a 
[36] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

weapon  which  may  be  greatly  abused 
and  which  a  severe  morahty  would 
be  slow  to  commend,  but  in  existing 
industrial  conditions  the  unions  cannot 
be  severely  censured  for  using  it. 

The  secondary  boycott  is  quite  an- 
other story.  The  union  may  boycott 
the  employer  with  whom  it  is  at  war, 
but  when  it  proceeds  to  boycott  all 
who  will  not  boycott  him,  it  is  carry- 
ing its  warfare  beyond  the  limits  of 
toleration.  "To  boycott  a  street  rail- 
way which  overworks  its  employees 
and  pays  starvation  wages  is  one 
thing,"  says  Mr.  Mitchell;  "to  boy- 
cott merchants  who  ride  in  the  cars 
is  quite  another  thing,  and  to  boycott 
people  who  patronize  the  stores  of  the 
merchants  who  ride  in  boycotted  cars 
is  still  another  and  a  very  different 
thing."  The  dealer  who  can  be  co- 
erced by  such  a  threat  is  a  man  whose 
[37] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

friendship  is  not  worth  much  to  the 
union,  and  the  enormous  accumula- 
tion of  ill  will  in  the  community,  which 
such  a  practise  always  engenders,  is  a 
heavy  price  to  pay  for  such  advan- 
tages as  it  may  secure.  There  is  no 
gainsaying  that  the  frequent  resort  to 
the  secondary  boycott  is  costing  the 
unions  much  in  the  loss  of  friends 
whom  they  greatly  need. 

I  have  not  mentioned  all  the  charges 
which  are  made  against  unionism,  but 
I  have  dealt,  as  I  believe,  with  the 
most  serious  of  them.  It  has  been 
made  to  appear  that  unionism  is  sub- 
ject to  some  serious  abuses.  I  hope 
that  it  has  also  appeared  that  these 
abuses  are  not  essential  parts  of  the 
system,  and  that  they  are  not  incur- 
able. Neither  the  petty  restrictions 
upon  work,  nor  the  ban  on  prison 
labor,  nor  the  lessening  of  the  output, 
[38] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

nor  the  violence  attendant  upon  labor 
struggles,  nor  the  sympathetic  strike, 
nor  the  secondary  boycott  can  be 
counted  as  a  necessary  feature  of 
unionism.  All  are  perversions  of  its 
true  functions,  excrescences  which  may 
be  purged  away.  No  fair-minded  man 
will  condemn  unionism  because  of  them 
any  more  than  he  will  denounce,  be- 
cause of  their  abuses,  the  Christian 
Church  or  the  democratic  state.  **It 
would  be  a  mistake,"  says  that  careful 
philosopher,  Professor  Charles  Horton 
Cooley,  "to  regard  these  or  any  other 
kinds  of  injustice  as  a  part  of  the 
essential  policy  of  unions.  They  are 
feeling  their  way  in  a  human,  fallible 
manner,  and  their  eventual  policy  will 
be  determined  by  what  in  the  way  of 
class  advancement  they  find  by  experi- 
ence to  be  practicable.  In  so  far  as 
they  attempt  things  that  are  unjust, 
[39] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

we  may  expect  them,  in  the  long  run, 
to  fail,  through  the  resistance  of  others 
and  through  the  awakening  of  their 
own  consciences.  It  is  the  part  of 
other  people  to  check  their  excesses 
and  to  cherish   their  benefits/'  ^ 

^  Social  Organization,  pp.  288-289 


[40I 


II 

THE  REASON  FOR  THE  UNIONS 


II 

THE  REASON  FOR  THE  UNIONS 

1HAVE  already  dealt  with  the  abuses 
of  unionism.  The  exigencies  of  the 
argument  seemed  to  call  for  this  or- 
der of  treatment,  because  most  of  those 
whom  I  wish  to  convince  are  aware  of 
nothing  but  the  abuses  of  unionism. 
If  they  can  be  made  to  see  that  these 
abuses  are  not  essential  to  the  institu- 
tion, they  may  be  willing  to  give  heed 
to  the  reasons  for  its  existence. 

It  may  be  supposed  that  the  presen- 
tation of  these  reasons  is  a  superfluous 
work.  Nearly  every  employer  whom 
you  meet  will  tell  you  promptly,  "I 
believe  in  trade-unions."  There  is  a 
goodly  number  of  those  whose  works 
[43] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

show  that  they  do  believe  in  them,  and 
who  are  seeking  to  enter  into  cordial 
cooperation  with  them.  Most  em- 
ployers, however,  are  apt  to  qualify 
their  confession  of  faith  by  some  such 
phrase  as  this:  "When  properly  organ- 
ized and  managed."  There  seems  to 
be  something  wanting  in  such  a  con- 
fession. Would  a  man  say,  **I  believe 
in  the  family,  when  properly  consti- 
tuted and  conducted,"  or  **I  believe 
in  democracy,  when  properly  organized 
and  managed".?  This  seems  to  imply 
a  reservation  of  our  faith  in  the  insti- 
tution, if,  in  any  case,  fault  can  be 
found  with  its  practical  administration. 
Would  it  not  be  better  to  say  concern- 
ing the  family  or  concerning  democracy: 
*'I  believe  in  it,  and  I  hold  myself  bound 
to  do  my  utmost  to  see  that  it  is  held 
in  honor  and  that  it  is  properly  con- 
stituted and  administered".?  If  such 
[44] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

were  the  attitude  of  all  employers  to- 
ward trade-unionism,  we  should  soon 
see  a  vast  improvement  in  the  indus- 
trial situation.  And  I  am  quite  sure 
that  there  are  many  employers  who  are 
now  frankly  antagonistic  to  the  unions 
who  would  take  this  more  friendly  atti- 
tude toward  them  if  they  could  clearly 
see  what  are  the  real  purposes  of  the 
unions,  and  what  disasters  are  involved 
in  the  proposition  to  kill  or  cripple  them.* 
Most  of  those  who  say  that  they 
believe  in  unions,  "if  properly  con- 
ducted," mean  to  confine  their  approval 
to  such  unions  as  are  purely  social  or 
beneficial.  Trade-unions  generally  em- 
body some  such  features,  but  they  are 
not  the  central  reasons  for  their  exist- 
ence. The  Federal  statute  providing 
for  the  incorporation  of  trade-unions 
mentions  these  objects,  but  also  speci- 

^  Appendix  II. 
l45l 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

fies,  as  purposes  of  such  organizations, 
"the  regulation  of  their  wages  and  their 
hours  and  conditions  of  labor,  the  pro- 
tection of  their  individual  rights  in  the 
prosecution  of  their  trade  or  trades." 
The  trade-union  has  always  had  insur- 
ance features  and  social  and  educational 
features,  and  these  are  the  features 
which  the  average  employer  is  ready  to 
indorse;  but  the  main  purpose  for 
which  they  are  organized  is  thus  suc- 
cinctly expressed  by  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Webb:  "To  provide  a  continuous  asso- 
ciation of  wage-earners,  for  the  purpose 
of  maintaining  or  improving  the  condi- 
tions of  their  employment'^  This  purpose 
the  average  employer  does  not  approve 
of;  when  the  union  begins  to  exert  its 
power  in  regulating  wages  or  hours  or 
conditions  of  labor,  he  thinks  that  it 
is  getting  out  of  its  sphere  and  becom- 
ing a  menace  to  the  social  wellbeing. 
I46] 


THE   LABOR    QUESTION 

Here,  now,  is  the  crux  of  the  situa- 
tion. This  is  the  main  function  of  the 
trade-union  —  to  organize  and  express 
the  will  of  its  members  in  bargaining 
about  terms  and  conditions  of  labor. 
For  one  who  disputes  this  right,  to  say 
that  he  believes  in  trade-unions  is  much 
like  saying  that  he  believes  in  watches 
provided  they  have  no  mainsprings,  or 
in  rivers  so  long  as  there  is  no  water 
in  them.  No  one  can  intelligently  say 
that  he  approves  of  trade-unions  unless 
he  approves  of  giving  to  the  men  who 
are  organized  in  them  the  right  of  deal- 
ing, through  their  representatives,  on 
equal  terms  with  their  employers,  con- 
cerning the  wages  they  shall  receive, 
the  hours  they  shall  labor,  and  the  con- 
ditions under  which  their  work  shall  be 
done. 

There  are  employers  who  appear  to 
say  that  they  are  willing  to  permit 
[47] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

trade-unions  to  negotiate  about  these 
matters,  provided  the  unions  will  pledge 
themselves  beforehand  not  to  enforce 
their  demands  by  striking.  It  does  not 
appear,  however,  that  these  employers 
propose  to  divest  themselves  of  the 
power  to  reduce  wages,  against  the  will 
of  the  men,  or  to  dismiss  whom  they 
will  without  the  consent  of  the  union. 
They  expect  to  keep  for  themselves  all 
the  power  they  now  possess;  all  they 
ask  is  that  before  entering  upon  the 
struggle  for  the  division  of  the  joint 
product  of  capital  and  labor,  the  repre- 
sentatives of  labor  shall  tie  their  own 
hands  behind  their  backs.  The  propo- 
sition does  not  appear  to  be  a  very 
chivalrous  one;  probably  while  human 
nature  remains  as  it  is,  and  the  com- 
petitive regime  continues  to  prevail, 
it  will  not  be  widely  accepted. 

What,  then,  shall  we  say  about  this 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

demand  of  the  unions  —  that  they  shall 
have  the  right,  collectively,  through 
their  chosen  representatives,  to  bargain 
with  their  employers  about  wages  and 
conditions  of  labor?  Is  it  a  reasonable 
demand?  I  think  that  it  is  eminently 
reasonable  and  just;  that  no  fair- 
minded  employer  ought  for  one  mo- 
ment to  question  it. 

Let  us  remind  ourselves  that  we  are 
not  dealing  now  with  the  old  domestic 
system  of  industry,  in  which  there  were 
nearly  as  many  men  as  masters,  and 
the  cases  were  rare  in  which  the  capi- 
talist employer  did  not  personally  know 
all  the  people  in  his  employ.  Most  of 
our  industrial  maxims  are  drawn  out  of 
that  old  regime,  and  have  no  applica- 
tion to  the  present  order.  Let  us  re- 
member that  we  are  dealing  now  with 
the  large  system  of  industry,  in  which 
a  single  responsible  employer  represents 
l49l 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

hundreds  or  thousands  of  stockholders, 
and  deals  with  hundreds  or  thousands 
of  employees  —  a  relation  in  which  per- 
sonal friendships  and  sympathies  be- 
tween employer  and  employee  have 
come  to  be  a  negligible  quantity.  Sup- 
pose, now,  that  there  is  no  organization 
among  the  laborers,  or  none  that  has 
any  power  to  deal  with  questions  of 
wages  or  hours  of  labor.  The  competi- 
tive regime  is  founded  on  the  assump- 
tion that  prices  will  be  fixed  by  "the 
higgling  of  the  market."  How  much 
"higgling  of  the  market"  is  likely  to 
take  place  between  a  single  laborer  and 
such  a  corporation.?  Let  Sidney  and 
Beatrice  Webb  set  forth  the  details  of 
the  process.  The  case  supposed  is  that 
of  a  labor  market  in  perfect  equilibrium. 
"We  assume  that  there  is  only  a 
single  situation  vacant,  and  only  one 
candidate  for  it.  When  the  workman 
[so] 


THE   LABOR    QUESTION 

applies  for  the  post  to  the  employer's 
foreman,  the  two  parties  differ  consid- 
erably in  strategic  strength.  There  is 
first  the  difference  of  alternative.  If 
the  foreman,  and  the  capitalist  em- 
ployer for  whom  he  acts,  fail  to  come 
to  terms  with  the  workman,  they  may 
be  put  to  some  inconvenience  in  arran- 
ging the  work  of  the  establishment. 
They  may  have  to  persuade  the  other 
workmen  to  work  harder  or  to  work 
overtime;  they  may  even  be  compelled 
to  leave  a  machine  vacant,  and  thus 
run  the  risk  of  some  delay  in  the  com- 
pletion of  an  order.  Even  if  the  work- 
man remains  obdurate,  the  worst  that 
the  capitalist  suffers  is  a  fractional  de- 
crease of  the  year's  profit.  Meanwhile 
he  and  his  foreman,  with  their  wives 
and  families,  find  their  housekeeping 
quite  unaffected ;  they  go  on  eating  and 
drinking,  working  and  enjoying  them- 
[51] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

selves,  whether  the  bargain  with  the 
individual  workman  has  been  made  or 
not.  Very  different  is  the  case  with 
the  wage-earner.  If  he  refuses  the 
foreman's  terms  even  for  a  day,  he  ir- 
revocably loses  his  whole  day's  subsist- 
ence. If  he  has  absolutely  no  other 
resources  than  his  labor,  hunger  brings 
him  to  his  knees  the  very  next  morning. 
Even  if  he  has  a  little  hoard,  or  a  couple 
of  rooms  full  of  furniture,  he  and  his 
family  can  only  exist  by  the  immediate 
sacrifice  of  their  cherished  provision 
against  calamity,  or  the  stripping  of 
their  home.  Sooner  or  later  he  must 
come  to  terms,  on  pain  of  starvation  or 
the  workhouse."^  It  is  now  universally 
agreed.  Professor  Marshall  tells  us, 
**  that  manual  laborers  as  a  class  are  at 
a  disadvantage   in  bargaining."     The 

^Industrial  Democracy,  Part  III,  Chap.  II. 
The  entire  chapter  is  most  illuminating. 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

fact  is  so  palpable  that  It  is  needless  to 
quote  authorities.  A  single  laborer  has 
no  fighting  chance  in  dealing  with  a 
great  corporation;  he  can  only  accept 
what  is  offered  him.  The  consequence 
is  his  inevitable  degradation.  Profes- 
sor Marshall  points  out  that  "the  ef- 
fects of  the  laborer's  disadvantage  in 
bargaining  are  cumulative  in  two  ways. 
It  lowers  his  wages,  and,  as  we  have 
seen,  this  lowers  his  efficiency  as  a 
worker,  and  thereby  lowers  the  normal 
value  of  his  labor;  and,  in  addition,  it 
lowers  his  efficiency  as  a  bargainer,  and 
thus  increases  the  chance  that  he  will 
sell  his  labor  for  less  than  its  normal 
value." 

Under  the  present  system  of  large  in- 
dustry, with  competition  as  the  regula- 
tive principle,  unorganized  labor  is 
always  driven  on  the  downward  road. 
This  results,  not  only  from  the  inequal- 
l53l 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

ity  between  the  single  laborer  and  the 
great  corporation,  but  also  from  the 
competition  between  employers.  For 
the  employer  of  humane  and  liberal 
sentiment,  who  wishes  to  pay  his  work- 
ing people  the  highest  wages  possible, 
finds  himself  unable  to  compete  with 
the  unscrupulous  employer,  who,  by 
forcing  wages  down,  is  able  to  produce 
goods  cheaper  than  the  former  can,  and 
thus  to  undersell  him  in  the  market  and 
get  his  business  away  from  him.  Mr. 
John  Graham  Brooks  quotes  a  retired 
shoe  manufacturer  of  wealth  who  said 
of  the  trade-unions:  "They  make  a 
good  many  stupid  mistakes,  but  an 
organization  strong  enough  to  fight  the 
employer  is  a  necessity  to  labor.  Com- 
petition so  forces  many  of  the  best  em- 
ployers to  copy  the  sharp  tricks  of  the 
worst  employers  in  lowering  wages, 
that  the  trade-union  must  be  equipped 
[54] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

to  fight  against  these  reductions  or  for 
a  rise  in  wages  when  business  is  more 
prosperous."^ 

The  fact  that  unorganized  labor  is 
steadily  forced  downward  toward  star- 
vation and  misery  is  a  fact  which  no 
student  of  industrial  conditions  would 
dream  of  denying.  The  history  of  the 
industrial  revolution  by  which  the  fac- 
tory system  supplanted  the  domestic 
system  of  production  is  full  of  examples 
of  this  process.  Men  who  angrily  de- 
clare that  there  shall  be  no  organization 
of  labor  ought  to  read  carefully  the 
industrial  history  of  the  second  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the 
conditions  which  they  consider  ideal 
were  prevailing  in  the  great  industrial 
centers.  There  were  no  unions  in 
England  during  the  earlier  part  of  this 
period;  laws  of  the  most  drastic  char- 
^The  Social  Unrest^  P  I5- 
[55] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

acter,  which  made  it  a  criminal  conspir- 
acy for  two  or  three  working  men  to 
consult  together  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  shorter  hours  or  better  wages, 
had  effectually  stamped  out  unionism. 
For  the  employers  it  was  a  most  pros- 
perous period;  wealth  was  increasing 
by  leaps  and  bounds,  great  fortunes 
were  being  heaped  up;  but  the  chasm 
between  the  employer  and  the  em- 
ployed was  steadily  widening,  and  the 
condition  of  the  working  people  was 
becoming  more  and  more  deplorable. 
*'In  the  new  cities,"  says  Arnold  Toyn- 
bee,  "the  old  warm  attachments,  born 
of  local  contiguity  and  intercourse, 
vanished  in  the  fierce  contest  for  wealth 
among  thousands  who  had  never  seen 
each  other's  faces  before.  Between  the 
individual  workmen  and  the  capital- 
ist who  employed  hundreds  of  'hands' 
a  wide  gulf  opened;  the  workman 
[56] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

ceased  to  be  the  cherished  dependent; 
he  became  the  Hving  tool  of  whom  the 
employer  knew  less  than  he  did  of  his 
steam-engine."^ 

Government  reports  of  this  period 
show  that  children  of  five  and  six  years 
of  age  were  frequently  employed  in 
factories.  Men  and  women  stood  at 
their  daily  tasks  from  twelve  to  four- 
teen and  fifteen  hours;  a  working  day 
of  sixteen  hours  was  not  an  unheard- 
of  thing.  Even  at  that  early  day  the 
demand  was  loud  for  machines  that 
could  be  tended  by  women  and  chil- 
dren; and  their  husbands  and  fathers 
were  driven  out  of  the  shops  and  com- 
pelled to  stand  idle  in  the  market-place. 
"Nor  was  this  unmeasured  abuse  of 
child  labor,"  says  Mr.  Hyndman,  "con- 
fined to  the  cotton,  silk,  or  wool  indus- 
tries. It  spread  in  every  direction. 
*  The  Industrial  Revolution,  p.  190. 
lS7] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

The  profit  was  so  great  that  nothing 
could  stop  its  development.  The  re- 
port of  1842  is  crammed  with  state- 
ments as  to  the  fearful  overwork  of 
girls  and  boys  in  iron  and  coal  mines, 
which  doubtless  had  been  going  on 
from  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Children,  being  small  and  handy,  were 
particularly  convenient  for  small  veins 
of  coal,  and  for  pits  where  no  great 
amount  of  capital  was  embarked;  they 
could  get  about  where  horses  and  mules 
could  not.  Little  girls  were  forced  to 
carry  heavy  buckets  of  coal  up  high 
ladders,  and  little  girls  and  boys, 
instead  of  animals,  dragged  the  coal- 
bunkers.  Women  were  constantly 
employed  underground  at  the  filthi- 
est tasks. "1 

Through  all  this  period  wages  gravi- 

^  Historic   Basis    of   Socialism    in    England, 
p.  166. 

[58] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

tated  downward,  and  while  the  cost  of 
food  increased,  the  family  income  was 
steadily  lowered.  The  Parliamentary 
reports  give  us  pictures  of  the  life  of 
the  people  in  all  the  great  manufactur- 
ing centers  that  leave  nothing  for  the 
imagination:  "In  the  parishes  of  St. 
John  and  St.  Margaret  there  lived  in 
1840,  according  to  the  Journal  of  the 
Statistical  Society^  5)3^6  working  men's 
families  in  5294  'dwellings'  (if  they 
deserve  the  name!),  men,  women,  and 
children  thrown  together  without  dis- 
tinction of  age  or  sex,  26,830  persons 
all  told;  and  of  these  families  three- 
fourths  possessed  but  one  room.  In 
the  aristocratic  parish  of  St.  George, 
Hanover  Square,  there  lived,  according 
to  the  same  authority,  1465  working 
men's  families,  nearly  six  thousand  per- 
sons, under  similar  conditions,  and  here, 
too,  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  whole 
[59] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

number  crowded  together  at  the  rate  of 
one  family  in  one  room." 

"The  preacher  of  the  old  church  at 
Edinburgh,  Dr.  Lee,  testified  in  1836 
before  the  Commission  of  Religious 
Instruction  that  he  had  never  seen  such 
misery  in  his  parish,  where  the  people 
were  without  furniture,  without  every- 
thing, two  married  couples  often  shar- 
ing one  room.  In  a  single  day  he  had 
visited  seven  houses  in  which  there  was 
not  a  bed;  in  some  of  them  not  even 
a  heap  of  straw.  Old  people  of  eighty 
years  sleep  on  the  board  floor;  nearly 
all  slept  in  their  day  clothes.  In  one 
cellar  room  he  found  two  families  from 
a  Scotch  country  district.  Soon  after 
their  removal  to  the  city  two  of  the 
children  had  died,  and  a  third  was  dying 
at  the  time  of  his  visit.  Each  family 
had  a  filthy  pile  of  straw  lying  in  a 

corner,  and  the  cellar  sheltered,  besides 
[60I 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

the  two  families,  a  donkey,  and  was, 
moreover,  so  dark  that  it  was  impossible 
to  distinguish  one  person  from  another 
by  day.  Dr.  Lee  declared  that  it  was 
enough  to  make  a  heart  of  adamant 
bleed  to  see  such  misery  in  a  country 
like  Scotland."  ^ 

And  these,  be  it  remembered,  were  no 
days  of  industrial  depression  in  Great 
Britain;  they  were  flush  times,  boom- 
ing times,  when  railways  were  building, 
and  great  mills  were  springing  up  on 
every  hand,  and  hundreds  of  capitalist 
employers  were  building  up  great  for- 
tunes. 

Such  is  the  irresistible  tendency  of 
the  large  system  of  industry  when  labor 
is  unorganized.  It  is  helpless  to  resist 
the  forces  which  press  upon  it  from 
every  side  and  doom  it  to  degradation. 

^  The  Condition  of  the   Working  Classes  in 
England  in  1844,  by  Frederick  Engels. 
f6il 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

Our  own  country  has  witnessed  com- 
paratively little  of  this  tendency,  be- 
cause until  recently  there  has  been 
abundance  of  cheap  land  to  which  the 
workers  could  betake  themselves,  and 
the  physical  development  of  a  new 
country  has  absorbed  our  surplus  labor. 
But  even  here  the  labor  of  women  in 
the  cities  has  given  us  some  hints  of 
the  oppression  to  which  unorganized 
labor  is  exposed;  and  such  conditions 
as  have  lately  been  uncovered  in  Pitts- 
burgh, where  unionism  has  been  practi- 
cally exterminated,  enable  us  to  see 
what  kind  of  fate  is  in  reserve  for  any 
working  class  which  fails  to  unite  for 
its  own  protection. 

What  other  possible  barrier  can  be 
interposed  between  the  working  class 
and  these  forces  of  selfishness  that  al- 
ways tend  to  exploit  and  degrade  them.? 
Shall  the  power  of  the  State  be  called 

f62l 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

in  to  protect  them?  The  State  may 
usefully  interfere  in  behalf  of  children 
and  women,  and  in  the  interest  of  pub- 
lic health,  and  for  the  safeguarding  of 
the  life  of  the  laborer,  and  in  some  other 
ways;  but  so  long  as  competition  is 
the  regulative  principle  of  industry,  the 
State  can  do  very  little  to  shield  the 
laboring  man  from  the  pressure  on  his 
means  of  subsistence  of  the  superin- 
cumbent mass  of  consolidated  capital. 
Nor  is  it  desirable  that  the  State  should 
take  any  class  of  its  citizens  under  its 
special  patronage. 

It  is  often  charged  that  the  State  has 
extended  special  privileges  to  capital, 
by  which  it  has  been  able  to  exploit  the 
laboring  class;  and  also  that  it  has 
failed  to  prevent  illegal  and  oppressive 
conduct  on  the  part  of  the  strong,  by 
which  the  weak  have  been  plundered. 
All  such  wrongs  the  State  is  bound  to 
[63] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

rectify;  but  when  it  has  done  all  that 
it  ought  to  do  in  these  directions,  it  will 
still  be  possible  for  great  combinations 
of  organized  capital  to  take  advantage 
of  unorganized  labor  and  crowd  it  to 
the  wall,  and  there  is  nothing  that  the 
State  can  do  to  prevent  it. 

It  may  be  suggested  that  the  senti- 
ments of  justice  and  humanity  in  the 
hearts  of  the  capitalists  themselves  will 
prevent  this  oppression.  Doubtless 
there  are  among  them  men  of  good  will 
who  would  be  moved  by  such  considera- 
tions; but  unfortunately,  these  are  not 
the  people  who  set  the  pace  in  these 
competitive  struggles;  and  the  unor- 
ganized laborers,  instead  of  enjoying 
the  protection  of  the  best  employers, 
soon  find  themselves  at  the  mercy  of 
the  meanest. 

But  who  wants  to  put  them  under 
anybody's  protection  or  at  anybody's 
[64] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

mercy?  Who  wants  them  to  be  cod- 
dled by  the  State  or  cockered  by  their 
employers?  Are  we  going  to  put  the 
millions  of  working  people  on  the  list 
of  beneficiaries,  and  teach  them  to  de- 
pend for  their  existence  on  the  bounty 
of  their  employers  ?  These  are  Ameri- 
can citizens ;  they  ought  not  to  feel  that 
they  are  living  on  this  soil  by  anybody's 
sufferance;  they  ought  not  to  be  put, 
by  our  industrial  system,  in  a  position 
of  vassalage,  and  they  must  not  be. 
They  ought  to  be  men  who  have  rights, 
and  who  "know  their  rights,  and,  know- 
ing, dare  maintain."  We  cannot  afford 
to  have  any  other  kind  of  citizens  in 
this  country.  Some  way  must  be 
found  by  which  these  men  shall  be- 
come, not  only  politically,  but  indus- 
trially free;  by  which  they  shall  have 
something  themselves  to  say  respect- 
ing the  terms  and  conditions  of  their 
[65] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

employment;  by  which  they  shall  be 
assured  that  their  standing  in  the  com- 
munity is  not  a  matter  of  grace,  but  of 
right. 

It  is  one  of  the  bitter  complaints 
against  trade-unionists  that  they  be- 
come insolent  and  arrogant  in  the  use 
of  their  power.  How  much  of  that  is 
a  reaction  from  the  abject  servility  to 
which  anti-unionism  tends  to  degrade 
them .?  I  confess  that  nothing  more  dis- 
quieting has  lately  come  to  my  knowl- 
edge than  that  state  of  mind  in  which 
we  sometimes  find  American  working 
men.  In  a  late  number  of  the  Techni- 
cal World  Mr.  P.  Harvey  Middleton 
thus  describes  his  interview  with  a 
working  man  in  the  Carnegie  works  at 
Homestead.  It  was  on  a  Sunday  morn- 
ing, and  the  man  was  just  out  of  the 
mill.     "He  was  asked  if  there  had  been 

any  reduction  of  Sunday  work  since 
[661 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

the  recent  order  about  Sunday  labor 

had  been  issued.     *  Reduction  be ! ' 

he  ejaculated.  'Why,  I  haven't  had  a 
Sunday  off  in  five  years.'  Then  he 
suddenly  became  very  serious,  and, 
looking  fearfully  around  the  car  (the 
steel  workers  have  learned  by  bitter 
experience  that  the  spies  of  the  corpo- 
ration are  everywhere),  bent  down  — 
he  was  over  six  feet  —  and  whispered 
in  my  ear:  'This  morning  I  skipped 
without  saying  a  word  to  my  boss.  I 
don't  know  what  will  happen,  and  I 
have  a  wife  and  five  kids  at  home.  But 
I  think  I  might  have  at  least  one  half 
Sunday  in  five  years,  don't  you  ? '  This 
last  an  almost  pathetic  appeal.  Here 
was  an  American  citizen  who  had  been 
working  twelve  hours  a  day,  seven  days 
(eighty-four  hours)  a  week  for  five  con- 
secutive years.  He  was  a  laborer,  and 
the  Steel  Trust  paid  him  for  his  endless 
[67] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

toil  sixteen  and  a  half  cents  an  hour. 
He  wanted  to  spend  the  Sunday  with 
his  wife  and  children,  but  there  was 
very  little  doubt  in  my  mind  that  when 
he  returned  to  work  on  Monday  morn- 
ing, he  would  be  promptly  discharged 
for  quitting  work  without  permission 
on  the  day  of  rest/' 

However  that  might  have  been,  the 
shameful  fact  is  that  an  American  man 
should  be  afraid  to  complain  of  such 
conditions  lest  he  should  lose  his  liveli- 
hood. So  also  during  this  year  of 
grace,  in  a  town  named  Bethlehem(!), 
three  machinists  who  dared  to  petition 
the  manager  of  the  steel  works  for 
the  elimination  of  Sunday  work  were 
promptly  discharged.  As  a  conse- 
quence of  this  drastic  policy,  generally 
enforced  where  there  are  no  unions, 
working  men  hardly  dare  to  express  a 

wish  for  better  conditions.     Mr.  Robert 
[681 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

A.  Woods,  a  most  sober  student  of 
existing  conditions,  says  that  "the 
Pittsburgh  employers'  point  of  view, 
more  than  that  of  any  other  city  in  the 
country,  is  Hke  that  of  England  in  the 
early  days  of  the  factory  system  — 
holding  employees  guilty  of  a  sort  of 
impiety,  and  acting  with  sudden  and 
sure  execution  if  they  undertake  to 
enforce  their  claims  in  such  way  as 
to  embarrass  the  momentum  of  great 
business  administration."  This  is  the 
point  of  view  which  tends  to  prevail 
where  unionism  is  excluded,  and  sub- 
mission to  it  must  produce  a  servile 
spirit  in  the  laborer. 

The  street-car  men  in  our  Columbus 
strike  have  told  me  of  the  fear  of  conse- 
quences which  oppressed  them  when, 
before  their  union  was  organized,  they 
ventured  to  circulate  a  humble  and 
perfectly  respectful  petition  for  a  slight 
[69] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

increase  of  pay.  That  they  had  reason 
for  such  fear  was  made  manifest  when 
the  company's  inspectors  warned  them 
that  they  would  be  sorry  if  they  did  any 
such  thing,  and  when  those  who  were 
instrumental  in  circulating  the  petition 
were  first  reprimanded  by  the  manager, 
and  then,  one  by  one,  discharged. 

I  do  not  think  that  a  wise  statesman- 
ship will  consent  to  see  the  masses 
of  American  working  men  put  in  a 
position  like  this.  Some  way  must 
be  found  by  which  they  may  keep 
their  liberty  and  preserve  their  man- 
hood. 

By  organizing  themselves  into  unions 
they  obtain  and  preserve  this  power. 
I  know  no  other  way  under  the  pres- 
ent industrial  system  by  which  they 
can  obtain  it.  I  have  never  heard 
any  other  way  suggested. 

By  this  method  they  do  maintain 
[70] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

their  freedom  and  prevent  the  degrada- 
tion to  which,  without  organization, 
they  are  doomed.  There  is  no  question 
that,  in  the  well-weighed  words  of  John 
Mitchell,  "trade-unionism  has  justified 
its  existence  by  good  works  and  high 
purposes.  ...  It  has  elevated  the 
standard  of  living  of  the  American 
workman  and  conferred  upon  him 
higher  wages  and  more  leisure.  It  has 
increased  efficiency,  diminished  acci- 
dents, averted  disease,  kept  the  children 
at  school,  raised  the  moral  tone  of  the 
factories."  Much  of  the  legislation  by 
which  the  conditions  of  the  laboring 
classes  have  been  improved  is  due  to 
the  initiative  of  the  unions.  Beyond 
all  controversy,  that  frightful  deteriora- 
tion of  the  industrial  classes  which  the 
large  system  of  industry  set  in  deadly 
operation  has  been  arrested,  and  the  lot 
of  the  laboring  man  has  been  vastly 
[71] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

improved  during  the  last  seventy-five 
years.  No  such  horrible  living  condi- 
tions as  those  which  I  have  described 
above  can  be  found  today  in  the  great 
factory  towns  of  Great  Britain;  even 
*'the  submerged  tenth"  are  living  far 
more  decently  now  than  the  average 
mechanic  was  living  then.  Even  Pitts- 
burgh, in  all  its  misery,  is  a  paradise 
compared  with  Manchester  and  Glas- 
gow in  the  third  and  fourth  decades  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  Many  causes 
have  wrought  together  to  produce  this 
improvement,  but  the  students  of  social 
science  agree  in  their  judgment  that  the 
most  efficient  cause  of  that  improve- 
ment has  been  the  organization  of  labor. 
It  has  enabled  the  working  people  to 
resist  the  pressure  that  would  have 
degraded  them,  and  to  demand  and 
secure  a  fairer  share  of  the  wealth  which 
their  labor  produces. 
[72] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

It  is  true  that  not  all  working  men 
have  been  included  in  the  unions,  but 
even  those  outside  the  organizations 
have  largely  shared  in  the  gains  that 
have  been  won  by  organized  labor. 
When,  in  an  open  shop,  the  union  suc- 
ceeds in  getting  better  wages  or  shorter 
hours,  the  non-union  men  get  the  bene- 
fit of  the  rise.  The  unorganized  trades, 
like  that  of  the  sewing  women,  have,  no 
doubt,  often  been  exploited  by  their 
employers;  but  the  general  level  of 
wages  is  undoubtedly  kept  up  by  the 
labor  unions. 

So  great  have  been  the  benefits  which 
unionism  has  brought  to  the  laboring 
classes  and  to  the  community  at  large 
that  a  philosophic  statesman  like  Pro- 
fessor Thorold  Rogers,  of  Oxford,  de- 
clared that  if  he  had  the  making  of  the 
laws  he  would  exclude  from  the  fran- 
chise all  workingmen  who  were  not 
I73] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

members  of  trade-unions.  Certain  it 
is  that  the  man  who  proposes  to  outlaw 
or  exterminate  them  assumes  a  heavy 
responsibihty. 


[74] 


Ill 

INDUSTRY    AND    DEMOCRACY 


Ill 

INDUSTRY    AND    DEMOCRACY 

WHAT  is  commonly  called  the 
Labor  Question  is  something 
more  than  a  problem  of  eco- 
nomic organization;  it  deals  with  all 
that  is  most  fundamental  in  the  life  of 
the  commonwealth.  It  challenges  the 
postulates  of  our  political  science;  the 
answer  to  it  involves  the  validity  of 
the  principles  laid  down  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  and  the  perma- 
nency of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  To  answer  it  in  one  way 
means  the  surrender  of  popular  govern- 
ment; to  answer  it  in  another  way 
means  the  fulfilment  and  completion 
of  democracy. 

[77] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

The  great  fact  of  the  age  is  Democ- 
racy, the  coronation  of  the  common 
man.  For  the  past  hundred  years  he 
has  been  steadily  coming  to  his  own. 
Not  only  in  the  republics,  the  United 
States  and  France  and  Switzerland, 
not  only  in  free  England  and  her 
colonies,  but  in  all  the  states  described 
as  monarchical,  the  enfranchisement 
of  the  common  man  has  been  going 
forward.  The  emperor  of  Germany, 
who  declares  that  he  rules  by  the 
will  of  God,  nevertheless  is  compelled 
to  ask  the  common  man  for  the  rev- 
enues by  which  he  rules;  even  the  czar 
of  Russia  and  the  sultan  of  Turkey 
have  been  compelled  to  stoop  to  him, 
and  the  lords  of  political  privilege 
everywhere  have  discovered  that  there 
is  no  stability  for  the  throne  that  is 
not  "broad-based  upon  the  people's 
will."  Popular  government  is  every- 
[78] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

where  in  the  ascendant,  and  not  only 
is  government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people,  not  going  to 
perish  from  the  earth,  it  is  going  to 
possess  the  earth,  and  that  at  no 
distant  day.  Monarchical  forms  may 
linger  long,  as  in  England,  but  the 
democratic  fact  will  prevail  everywhere 
as  it  prevails  there. 

In  our  own  country  we  have  given, 
in  theory,  the  most  unreserved  ex- 
pression to  the  principle  of  political 
democracy;  the  principle  is  yet  but 
imperfectly  worked  out  here,  as  every- 
where, and  we  have  much  exacting 
business  upon  our  hands  in  completing 
and  developing  our  democratic  insti- 
tutions —  work  that  will  call  for  a 
great  deal  of  patience  and  toil  and 
self-denial;  but  we  believe,  most  of  us, 
in  the  principle;  we  have  committed 
ourselves  to  it,  and  we  expect,  by 
[79] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

means  of  it,  to  unify  the  diverse 
races  now  thronging  upon  this  con- 
tinent and  to  make  of  them  a  strong, 
free,  self-governing  people.     ^ 

But  there  is  one  department  of  our 
life,  and  this  the  largest  interest  of 
all,  which  has  not  been  democratized. 
Our  industries  are  still  largely  on  an 
autocratic  or  feudalistic  basis.  We 
have  been  trying  to  correlate  a  po- 
litical democracy  with  an  industrial 
feudalism.  They  do  not  work  well 
together.  I  do  not  think  that  they 
will  endure  together.  They  are  antag- 
onistic principles.  The  development 
of  the  large  system  of  industry  accen- 
tuates the  antagonism.  We  may  say 
what  Lincoln  said  of  slavery  and  free- 
dom; the  country  will  become  eventu- 
ally all  democratic  or  all  feudalistic. 
The  working  men  will  lose  their  politi- 
cal liberty,  or  they  will  gain  their  in- 
[8ol 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

dustrial  liberty.  I  do  not  think  that 
they  will  lose  their  votes;  I  think  that 
they  will  gain  their  right  to  have  a 
voice  in  determining  what  wages  they 
shall  receive  and  under  what  conditions 
they  shall  work. 

Let  me  explain  what  I  mean  when 
I  say  that  the  basis  of  our  present 
industry  is  feudalistic.  I  am  speak- 
ing, of  course,  of  the  large  system  of 
industry  under  which  the  world's  work 
is  now  mainly  done,  and  I  am  assum- 
ing, also,  that  there  is  no  organiza- 
tion of  the  laborers,  since  that  is  the 
condition  which  industrial  feudalism 
holds  up  as  the  ideal  and  struggles 
to  establish.  Under  this  system  the 
capitalist  manager  assumes  the  exclu- 
sive right  to  fix  the  rate  of  wages,  the 
hours  of  labor,  the  conditions  under 
which  the  work  is  done.     He  cannot, 

of  course,  discuss  these  matters  with 
[8i] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

each  of  his  one  thousand  or  ten  thou- 
sand workmen;  there  can,  therefore, 
be  no  semblance  of  a  bargain  in  the 
case;  it  is  an  ultimatum;  the  em- 
ployer presents  it,  the  working  man 
can  take  it  or  leave  it.  It  would  be 
absurd  for  a  single  laborer  to  propose 
to  chaffer  about  wages  or  hours  of 
labor  with  the  American  Steel  Corpo- 
ration or  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company.  Out  of  these  circumstances 
very  naturally  grows  the  assumption, 
on  the  part  of  the  employer,  that  the 
right  as  well  as  the  power  to  fix  the 
laborer's  wages  belongs  exclusively  to 
him.  When,  therefore,  any  man  or 
any  body  of  men  proposes  to  have 
something  to  say  about  it,  he  indig- 
nantly resents  this  proposal;  he  calls 
it  interfering  with  his  business.  What 
he  says  to  them  is  precisely  this: 
"It    is    none    of  your    business    what 

f82l 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

wages  you  shall  receive;  it  is  my 
business  to  tell  you  how  much  you 
can  have,  and  I  cannot  permit  any 
one  to  dictate  to  me  about  my  busi- 
ness. 

Of  course  the  employer  would  say 
that  the  working  man,  or  the  group 
of  working  men,  to  whom  he  presents 
this  ultimatum,  can  seek  employment 
elsewhere;  but  he  would  also  say,  if 
he  is  morally  consistent,  that  all  other 
employers  ought  to  treat  workmen  in 
the  same  way  that  he  treats  them; 
and  if  all  do,  then  the  working  man's 
right  to  have  something  to  say  about 
the  wages  he  shall  receive  is  practi- 
cally denied.  Under  such  a  regimen 
he  becomes  a  beneficiary,  a  dependent; 
reversing  Sir  Henry  Maine's  phrase, 
he  has  gone  back  from  contract  to 
status;  he  is  not  a  free  man;  he  has 
sunk  into  servitude.  This  is  what  I 
[83] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

mean  when  I  say  that  the  basis  of 
our  present  industry  is  feudahstic. 

The  working  men  found  out,  a 
good  while  ago,  that  the  only  possible 
way  of  preserving  and  enforcing  their 
right  of  contract  in  the  sale  of  their 
labor  was  by  uniting  together  and 
insisting  on  collective  bargaining  with 
their  employers.  If  the  capitalist 
manager's  one  thousand  or  ten  thou- 
sand employees  unite  in  presenting 
their  demands,  they  may  succeed  in 
getting  some  attention  to  them.  By 
union  and  organization  they  may  keep 
themselves  from  being  reduced  to  a 
position  of  dependence  and  servitude, 
and  may  establish  their  right  to  a 
share  in  the  wealth  created  by  their 
labor  and  a  voice  in  the  distribution 
of  the  product  of  industry. 

This  means,  of  course,  the  recogni- 
tion of  a  partnership  of  the  men  in 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

the  business  by  which  they  earn  their 
liveUhood;  their  employer  has  invested 
his  money  in  it,  and  they  have  invested 
their  Hves;  they  are  entitled  to  such 
recognition.  When  this  right  is  recog- 
nized, they  are  not  any  longer  sub- 
jects; they  are  fellow-citizens  and 
freemen;  the  common  man  has  come 
to  his  own  in  the  industrial  realm; 
our  democracy  has  completed  itself. 

Long  ago  we  gave  the  common  man 
the  right  to  take  part  in  making  the 
laws  of  the  State  and  the  Nation  and 
in  choosing  the  men  who  should  ad- 
minister those  laws;  we  let  him  say 
who  shall  be  our  presidents  and  our 
governors  and  our  judges;  but  we 
have  been  afraid  that  it  would  never 
do  to  let  him  have  anything  to  say 
about  the  wages  he  should  receive  or 
the  hours  he  should  work.  I  do  not 
think  that  this  fear  is  rational;  at 
[8s] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

any  rate,  the  thing  that  he  asks  for 
is  his  right,  and  we  have  got  to  give 
him  his  right  and  teach  him  how  to 
use  it.  And  since,  under  the  present 
industrial  system,  it  is  impossible  for 
him  to  assert  and  maintain  this  right 
without  organization,  all  who  love  jus- 
tice and  freedom  ought  to  encourage 
him  to  organize,  and  stand  by  him  and 
see  that  he  gets  the  fruits  of  his  organi- 
zation. 

There  is  no  other  way,  I  repeat, 
under  the  pressure  of  the  stupendous 
combinations  of  capital,  to  rescue  labor 
from  degradation  except  by  the  firm 
organization  of  labor.  There  is  no 
salvation  for  our  democracy  under  the 
wage  system  but  in  this  concerted 
resistance  of  the  wage-workers.  That 
they  are  prone  to  abuse  their  power 
has  been  fully  admitted,   and  we  all 

know  how  impossible  are  some  of  their 
186] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

methods,  and  how  needful  it  some- 
times is  to  resist  and  defeat  their 
aggressions.  The  acquisition  of  power 
by  those  who  have  long  been  deprived 
of  it,  is  apt  to  be  attended  by  out- 
breaks of  wilfulness  and  arrogance. 
Patience  and  firmness  will  be  needed 
in  dealing  with  such  cases.  But  as 
soon  as  we  have  made  up  our  minds 
to  be  just,  it  will  be  easier  to  be  patient 
and  firm.  We  can  stand  up  against 
other  people's  wrongs  much  more  suc- 
cessfully when  they  know  that  we  are 
ready  to  concede  and  maintain  their 
rights.  I  do  not  expect  to  see  law- 
lessness disappear  from  trade-unionism 
so  long  as  there  is  so  strong  a  disposi- 
tion among  employers  to  insist  on 
making  trade-unions  outlaws.  When 
workmen's  right  to  combine  for  the 
protection  of  their  interests  is  fully 
and  frankly  conceded,  we  shall,  I 
[87] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

believe,  soon  see  a  great  diminution 
of  violence.  At  any  rate,  we  shall 
then  be  in  a  position  to  deal  with  it, 
if  it  appears,  sternly  and  effectively. 

I  do  not,  however,  indulge  the  expec- 
tation that  no  mistakes  will  ever  be 
made  and  no  wrongs  committed  by 
working  men  after  their  right  to  com- 
bine is  fully  recognized.  They  are 
human,  like  the  rest  of  us;  and  if 
they  sometimes  act  foolishly  and  self- 
ishly, those  of  us  who  never  make  any 
mistakes  or  do  any  mean  things  our- 
selves will  be  warranted  in  stoning 
them  with  stones. 

The  fact  that  they  do  sometimes 
act  unreasonably  and  even  brutally 
is  constantly  and  passionately  cited 
as  a  reason  why  they  should  not  be 
permitted  to  combine.  But  I  seem  to 
remember  to  have  somewhere  heard  it 

intimated  that  corporations  have  been 

[88] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

known  to  behave  lawlessly  and  flagi- 
tiously. Shall  we  therefore  have  no 
corporations?  If  power  is  to  be  de- 
nied to  all  who  abuse  it,  most  of  us 
will  have  to  go  powerless  for  the  rest 
of  our  days.  If  those  who  have  most 
abused  it  are  to  be  the  first  to  be 
deprived  of  it,  then  I  say  deliberately 
that  there  are  ten  reasons  for  pro- 
hibiting corporations  where  there  is 
one  for  prohibiting  trade-unions. 

The  power  that  men  need  to  make 
them  men  must  be  given  to  them  even 
though  they  may  sometimes  abuse  it. 
That  is  the  principle  of  democracy; 
and  the  time  has  come  when  the 
principle  of  democracy  must  be  un- 
reservedly accepted  and  unflinchingly 
applied  to  the  organization  of  our  in- 
dustries. The  common  man,  the  work- 
ing man,  must  be  a  freeman.  He 
must  not  be  required  or  permitted  to 
[89] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

occupy  a  dependent  or  servile  position 
in  the  industrial  world. 

It  is  well  to  get  clearly  before  our 
minds  the  issue  which  confronts  us. 
The  question  is  whether  we  are  ready 
to  see  our  democracy  complete  itself. 
To  that  question  the  answer  will  not 
be  unanimous.  We  have  among  us 
not  a  few  lords  of  privilege  who  have 
been  practising  feudalism  long  enough 
to  lose  their  faith  in  democracy.  Men 
who  mount  to  affluence  in  a  decade  or 
two  are  quite  apt  to  acquire  contempt 
for  those  who  earn  their  daily  bread 
by  manual  labor.  Some  of  them  have 
sense  enough  to  conceal  it,  but  there 
are  many  who  blurt  it  out  with  no 
misgiving.  "Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman," 
to  whom  Mr.  Finley  Dunne  has  intro- 
duced us  in  his  Interpreter'' s  House, 
is  not  an  imaginary  type;  his  cyni- 
cisms are  but  faithful  reports  of  what 
[90] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

may  be  heard  anywhere  in  the  rich 
men's  clubs  and  the  smoking-rooms  of 
the  American  Uners.  The  people  who 
think  that  popular  government  is  a 
delusion,  that  our  public  school  sys- 
tem is  a  curse,  and  that  what  we  want 
is  an  American  House  of  Lords  to 
overawe  and  hold  in  check  the  insur- 
gent democracy,  may  be  met  with 
here  and  there  in  the  resorts  frequented 
by  the  new  rich.  The  funniest  thing 
for  many  a  moon  is  the  spectacle  of 
these  people  beating  their  breasts  with 
alarm  lest  Theodore  Roosevelt  should 
make  himself  a  king! 

The  existence  of  a  considerable  revolt 
against  democracy  in  our  American 
citizenship  is  a  fact  to  be  reckoned  with. 
It  is  not  a  matter  of  wonder.  Many 
of  these  people  are  living  a  life  which 
in  all  its  features  is  at  war  with  the 
first  principles  of  democracy.  They 
[91] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

could  hardly  be  expected  to  maintain 
their  faith  in  a  social  theory  which  all 
their  practise  flouts. 

There  are  many  others  whose  lives 
are  simpler,  but  who  are  beginning  to 
shrink  from  the  burdens  which  de- 
mocracy imposes.  Most  of  us  have 
been  inclined  to  assume  that  democ- 
racy was  a  sort  of  automatic  device; 
given  universal  suffrage  and  free 
schools,  and  the  machinery  would  run 
without  much  superintendence.  It 
begins  to  be  evident  that  this  is  a 
mistaken  theory.  Democracy  is  pre- 
cisely the  kind  of  government  which 
requires  of  its  citizens  the  largest 
amount  of  gratuitous  service.  We  can 
have  the  best  government  in  the  world 
with  such  citizens  as  are  now  upon 
our  soil;  but  only  when  men  of  intel- 
ligence and  force  face  the  responsi- 
bilities of  citizenship,  and  give  time 
[92] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

and  toil  and  patience  to  the  work  of 
training  and  guiding  the  voters.  Good 
government  under  any  system  is  a 
costly  product,  and  under  a  democ- 
racy the  cost  must  be  paid  by  the 
entire  body  of  competent  citizens.  It 
is  a  war  in  which  there  is  no  discharge; 
the  vigilance  which  is  the  price  of 
liberty  is  not  only  eternal,  it  is  uni- 
versal. 

Now,  it  is  a  melancholy  fact  that 
a  good  many  of  our  well-to-do  and  not 
evil-minded  citizens  are  getting  tired 
of  the  responsibilities  of  democracy; 
they  find  that  it  is  a  strenuous  busi- 
ness, and  they  would  fain  be  rid  of 
it.  They  would  rather  give  their  days 
to  gain  and  their  nights  to  pleasure 
than  to  shoulder  the  task  of  govern- 
ing this  republic.  Some  of  them  talk 
very  pessimistically  about  the  future 
of  popular  government,  and  even  hint 
[93] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

now  and  then  at  the  beneficence  of  a 
dictatorship.  Such  men  are  not  Hkely 
to  welcome  the  suggestion  of  the  ex- 
tension of  democracy  to  the  indus- 
trial realm.  The  existing  feudalistic 
regime  suits  them  better.  They  do 
not  relish  the  task  which  would  be 
thrust  upon  them  by  the  democratiza- 
tion of  our  industries.  They  are  right 
in  thinking  that  it  is  a  difficult  task. 
Perhaps  they  deem  it  impossible.  Be- 
fore coming  to  that  conclusion,  how- 
ever, it  may  be  well  for  them  to 
consider  a  few  of  the  alternatives. 

There  are  some  difficulties,  I  be- 
lieve, in  maintaining  the  feudalistic 
regime.  The  employer  who  refuses 
to  recognize  the  right  of  his  men  to 
have  anything  to  say  about  wages  or 
hours  of  labor  does  not  always  have 
an  easy  and  quiet  time  of  it.  Troubles 
of  a  pretty  serious  nature  do  arise, 
[94] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

even  under  such  management.  Are 
not  the  frictions  and  colUsions  and 
losses  of  the  autocratic  regime  quite 
as  injurious  as  any  that  would  be 
likely  to  arise  under  a  more  friendly 
arrangement? 

The  man  who  thinks  it  would  be 
difficult  to  lead  his  employees  in  the 
peaceful  paths  of  productive  industry 
may  well  consider  whether  it  is  any 
easier  to  drive  them.  He  may  even 
find  it  profitable  to  consult  his  own 
experience  in  answering  that  question. 

It  is  prudent,  also,  to  remember 
that  we  are  dealing  here  with  one  of 
those  secular  forces  against  which  it 
is  futile  to  contend.  If  anything  is 
clearly  written  in  the  book  of  destiny, 
so  far  as  its  pages  have  thus  far  been 
turned  over,  it  is  that  democracy  is 
going  to  complete  itself.  That  proc- 
ess has  been  moving  steadily  forward 
[95I 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

during  the  past  century,  and  it  is  not 
likely  to  be  arrested.  Feudalism  has 
made  its  last  stand  in  the  industrial 
realm,  but  it  is  not  probable  that  it 
can  hold  that  fortress.  The  prevalence 
of  the  large  system  of  industry  will 
not  be  suffered  to  degrade  our  wage- 
workers  to  the  condition  of  serfs. 
There  has  never  been  a  day  when  such 
a  result  was  less  probable  than  it  is 
today.  If  the  employing  class  should 
put  itself  in  opposition  to  this  move- 
ment for  the  emancipation  of  the 
working  class,  the  employing  class 
would  cease  to  exist;  the  wage  system 
would  be  destroyed;  industry  would 
be  reorganized  on  a  new  basis. 

It  is  well,  therefore,  for  our  captains 
of  industry  to  consider  carefully  what 
may  be  involved  in  their  refusal  to 
recognize  or  tolerate  the  only  method 
by  which  the  working  man  can  assert 
[96] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

and  maintain  his  rights.  It  is  a  peril- 
ous thing,  as  history  shows,  to  deny 
the  manhood  of  the  common  man. 
Kingdoms  and  thrones  have  been 
shaken  by  that  refusal;  the  kingdom 
of  capitalism  is  by  no  means  secure 
against  such  an  overturning.  The 
danger  of  the  hour,  as  it  appears  to 
me,  is  that  our  captains  of  industry 
will  array  against  themselves  the 
gathering  might  of  resistless  democracy 
and  be  trampled  in  the  dust.  It 
would  be  far  better  for  them,  and  for 
the  common  man,  and  for  all  the  rest 
of  us,  if  they  would  keep  the  leader- 
ship of  industry.  Leadership  they  can 
have,  if  they  have  sense  to  claim  it 
and  wit  to  exercise  it  —  leadership, 
but  not  lordship.  Industrial  democ- 
racy wants  leaders,  but  not  autocrats; 
and  large  rewards  and  precious  —  not 
billions  of  dollars,  but  blessing  and 
[97] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

honor  —  are  waiting  for  those  who 
have  the  vision  and  the  courage  for 
this  high  service. 

Industrial  democracy  means  giving 
the  wage-workers,  through  collective 
bargaining,  a  voice  in  the  determina- 
tion of  their  share  in  the  joint  product. 
It  does  not  mean  the  domination  of 
the  business  by  the  men  and  the  sub- 
jugation of  the  employer,  though  this 
is  the  employer's  apprehension,  and 
this  is  the  notion  that  sometimes  gets 
into  the  working  man's  head.  Mr. 
Keir  Hardie,  M.P.,  for  whom  I  have 
great  respect,  spoke  only  the  other 
day  of  the  prospect  that  the  working 
class  was  about  to  become  the  ruling 
class.  Pardon,  Mr.  Hardie,  but  in 
democracy  there  are  no  ruling  classes. 
We  call  no  man  master,  not  even 
the  walking  delegate.  And  inverted 
feudalism,  with  the  common  man  on 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

top,  would  be  no  whit  better  than  the 
old-fashioned  sort  with  the  common 
man  under  foot.  We  will  have  neither 
of  them.  You  are  not  going  to  tyran- 
nize over  us,  Mr.  Keir  Hardie,  with 
your  labor  organizations,  and  we  do 
not  believe  that  you  really  want  to 
do  any  such  thing.  You  are  going  to 
stand  by  our  side,  with  power  in  the 
industrial  realm  to  assert  and  main- 
tain your  rights  as  men,  and  with  a 
sense  of  justice  in  your  breasts  which 
will  enable  you  fully  to  recognize  the 
rights  of  your  capitalist  employer; 
and  we  are  going  to  work  together, 
all  classes  —  men  of  capital,  men  of 
organizing  talent,  men  of  skill,  men 
of  brains,  and  men  of  brawn  —  to 
build  a  real  commonwealth. 

So  shall  we  realize  our  democracy. 
It  has  never  been  anything  more  than 
the  skeleton  of  a  democracy;    so  long 
I99] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

as  industry  is  feudalistic  it  cannot  be. 
But  when  the  common  man  is  emanci- 
pated and  called  into  partnership  by 
the  captain  of  industry,  we  shall  have 
a  real  democracy.  No  superhuman 
vision  is  needed  to  discern  the  fact 
that  the  confusions  and  corruptions 
of  our  political  democracy  are  largely 
due  to  the  disorganizing  influence  of 
this  industrial  feudalism,  in  constant 
contact  with  it,  and  continually  thrust- 
ing its  alien  conceptions  and  ideals  into 
the  political  arena.  When  industry  is 
fairly  democratized,  it  will  be  much 
easier  to  reform  our  politics. 

The  relinquishment  of  autocratic 
power  is  not  apt  to  be  a  welcome 
suggestion;  the  cases  are  few  in  which 
it  is  surrendered  without  a  deadly 
struggle.  But  within  the  last  genera- 
tion we  have  seen  the  feudal  rulers 
of  Japan   resigning   their    power    and 

[  lOO  ] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

entering  heartily  into  the  Hfe  of  the 
commonwealth,  with  great  honor  to 
themselves  and  great  profit  to  their 
nation.  It  is  not  incredible  that  many 
of  our  own  captains  of  industry  will  dis- 
cern the  wisdom  of  a  similar  sacrifice. 
Indeed,  there  are  those  among  them 
to  whom  this  solution  of  the  labor 
problem  seems  altogether  feasible. 

The  late  William  Henry  Baldwin,  Jr., 
whose  biography  has  been  so  admirably 
written  by  Mr.  John  Graham  Brooks,^ 
was  a  type  of  the  class  of  employers 
to  whom  the  democratization  of  in- 
dustry is  the  way  of  life  and  peace. 
As  a  railway  superintendent  and  presi- 
dent he  had  large  experience  in  dealing 
with  men,  and  all  the  positions  taken 
in  this  chapter  were  held  by  him  with 
the  utmost  firmness.     In  the  book  to 

^  An  American  Citizen.      By  J.  G.  Brooks. 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston, 
[loi] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

which  I  have  referred,  and  which 
ought  to  be  read  by  every  American 
employer,  these  opinions  of  his  are  set 
forth  with  great  fulness.  Speaking  of 
the  extension  of  collective  bargaining, 
he  says:  "The  advantages  of  this 
system  are  very  obvious  in  that  it  is 
a  system  founded  on  an  intelligent 
treatment  of  each  question  at  issue, 
and  encourages  education,  and,  as  far 
as  we  can  see  today,  is  the  most 
advanced  method  and  liable  to  pro- 
duce the  best  results.  Collective  bar- 
gaining and  voluntary  arbitration  are 
possible,  however,  only  when  the  em- 
ployer recognizes  the  right  of  the  employed 
to  have  a  voice  in  the  fixing  of  wages 
and  terms  of  employment.^' 

"In  the  spirit  of  fair  play,"  says 
Mr.  Brooks,  "he  asks  the  simplest 
question:    'If  these  billions  of  capital 

have  to  be  organized  to  protect  them- 
[102] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

selves  against  disputing  rivalries,  do 
not  the  laborers  working  for  these 
organizations  have  the  same  need  of 
combination?  Do  they  not  need  it 
for  the  same  reason?  Is  capital  ex- 
posed to  cutthroat  competition  in  any- 
greater  degree  than  labor  is  exposed 
to  it?  How  can  capital  have  the  face 
to  ask  for  combination,  in  order  to 
free  itself  from  a  murderous  competi- 
tion, when  labor  suffers  every  whit  as 
much  from  the  same  cause?'  I  have 
heard  Baldwin,"  his  biographer  goes 
on,  "very  eloquent  on  this  subject. 
The  deepest  thing  in  him  was  his 
sense  of  justice.  He  felt  it  like  an 
insult  that  the  more  powerful  party 
should  stoop  to  ask  such  odds  against 
the  weaker  and  more  defenseless 
party."  "*We  men  at  the  top,*  says 
Baldwin,  'must  have  combination,  we 
must  have  our  representatives  and 
[103  ] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

"walking  delegates,"  We  have  every- 
thing that  powerful  organization  can 
ask,  with  the  ablest  lawyers  to  do  our 
bidding.  Labor,  to  protect  its  rights 
and  standards,  needs  organization,  at 
least  as  much  as  we  need  it.  For 
capital  to  use  its  strength  and  skill 
to  take  this  weapon  from  the  working 
men  and  women  is  an  outrage.'" 
And  again:  **'I  need,  as  an  employer, 
an  organization  among  my  employees, 
because  they  know  their  needs  better 
than  I  can  know  them,  and  they  are 
therefore  the  safeguard  upon  which  I 
must  depend  in  order  to  prevent  me  from 
doing  them  an  injustice.^  " 

This  is  getting  right  at  the  nerve 
of  the  whole  matter.  No  wiser,  braver, 
saner  words  were  ever  spoken.  The 
labor  question  will  be  speedily  settled 
when  such  a  spirit  of  justice  and  fair 

play,  such  a  recognition  of  the  elemen- 

[  104  ] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

tal  rights  of  manhood,  gets  possession 
of  the  hearts  of  employers.  Of  the 
habit  of  mind  which  cannot  concede 
so  much  as  this,  one  can  say  nothing 
better  than  that  it  is  unsportsman- 
Hke.  We  give  even  the  wild  creatures 
a  chance  for  their  lives;  and  so  long 
as  the  industrial  struggle  continues, 
the  chivalrous  employer  will  not  insist 
that  his  employees  shall  go  into  the 
contest  with  their  hands  tied  behind 
them. 

Beyond  this  question  of  personal 
honor  between  employer  and  employee 
is  one  that  touches  very  deeply  the 
foundations  of  our  social  structure 
*'If  capital  refuses  to  labor  what  cap- 
ital asks  and  takes  for  itself,  what 
are  the  final  consequences  of  that 
injustice?  How,  in  the  long  run,  is 
labor  to  take  this  defeat  of  what  it 
believes  to  be  its  rights?  Those  cap- 
I105I 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

italist  managers,  really  hostile  to  the 
unions,  said  to  him  in  excuse  that 
the  unions  checked  and  hindered  the 
development  of  business  prosperity. 
Baldwin  had  his  answer:  'Even  if  that 
is  true,  it  is  better  to  get  rich  at  a 
somewhat  slower  pace  than  to  make 
millions  of  wage-earners  lose  faith  in 
your  justice  and  fairness.'" 

Is  it  too  much  to  expect  that  our 
captains  of  industry  will  give  sober 
heed  to  words  like  these,  spoken  by 
one  of  their  own  number? 

It  is  not,  however,  necessary  to 
assume  that  the  democratization  of 
industry  will  prove  any  serious  obstruc- 
tion to  the  healthy  growth  of  business. 
If  the  trade-unions  have  often  shown 
themselves  to  be  tyrannical  and  greedy, 
we  must  remember  that  they  have 
been   fighting,    thus   far,   in   an   arena 

where   belligerent   rights   were   denied 
[  io6  ] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

them;  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
they  have  sometimes  taken  unfair  ad- 
vantages. When  their  rights  are  fully- 
recognized,  better  conduct  may  be 
looked  for.  So  long  as  they  are  treated 
as  enemies  it  is  not  logical  to  ask  them 
to  behave  as  friends. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  study 
the  origins  of  those  trade-unions  which 
have  made  trouble  for  employers.  The 
cases  are  not  all  alike,  but  in  many 
instances  something  like  this  has  hap- 
pened: some  dissatisfaction  on  the 
part  of  the  men  has  shown  itself,  and 
it  becomes  known  to  the  employer 
that  steps  are  being  taken  for  the 
organization  of  a  union.  At  once  his 
displeasure  is  manifested.  He  feels 
that  the  action  is  hostile  to  his  interest; 
his  entire  attitude  toward  it  is  un- 
friendly  from   the   start.     It   becomes 

well  understood  among  the  men  that 
[107] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

those  who  join  the  union  are  exposing 
themselves  to  the  ill  will  of  the 
employer;  that  those  who  refuse  to 
join  may  expect  his  favor.  Thus  the 
interests  of  the  men  are  divided,  and 
the  non-unionist  contingent  is  fostered 
by  the  manager  as  a  force  to  check 
and  defeat  the  unionists  in  the  event 
of  a  struggle.  Under  such  circum- 
stances bad  temper  is  generated  on 
both  sides,  and  the  relations  of  all 
parties  are  badly  strained.  The  man- 
ager refuses  to  recognize  the  union; 
that,  he  insists,  would  be  an  injustice 
to  the  loyal  men  who  have  refused 
to  join  it.  If  a  union  with  such  a 
history  should  prove  to  be  a  dis- 
turbing and  refractory  element  in  the 
business,  it  would  not  be  a  miracle. 
Suppose,  now,  that  when  the  first 
signs  of  an  uprising  among  the  men 

appear,  the  employer,  instead  of  treat- 

f  108I 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

ing  it  with  suspicion  or  hostility,  wel- 
comes it.  Suppose  that  he  goes  out 
among  the  men  and  says  to  them, 
what  Baldwin  would  have  said:  "Cer- 
tainly, men,  you  must  organize.  I 
mean  to  treat  you  fairly,  but  I  do 
not  want  you  to  be  dependent  on  my 
favor;  I  insist  that  you  shall  have 
the  power  to  stand  for  your  own 
rights.  And  I  want  all  the  men  in 
this  shop  to  join  this  union.  No  man 
will  curry  favor  with  me  by  staying 
out  of  it.  I  am  going  to  be  friends 
with  the  union,  and  I  expect  the  union 
to  be  my  friend.  This  is  not  my 
business,  not  your  business,  it  is  our 
business.  I  shall  study  your  interest 
and  you  will  study  mine;  we  will 
consult  together  about  it  all  the  while; 
I  think  we  can  make  it  go  together. 
If  you  ask  me  for  what  I  cannot  give, 

I  shall  tell  you  so.     And  I  hope  you 
[  109  ] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

will  learn  to  believe  that  I  am  telling 
you  the  truth.  I  shall  stand  for  my 
rights  if  you  are  mean  and  unreason- 
able, and  you  will  stand  for  yours  if 
you  think  I  am  unjust,  but  if  we  must 
fight  we  stand  on  the  level  and  fight 
fair.  I  hope  that  there  will  be  no 
fighting." 

Now,  it  is  possible  that  a  group  of 
American  working  men  could  be  found 
who  would  make  trouble  for  an  em- 
ployer who  took  that  attitude  and 
consistently  maintained  it,  but  I  do 
not  believe  that  there  are  many  such 
groups.  It  would  be  visionary  to 
expect  that  any  method  which  man 
could  devise  would  wholly  remove 
friction  and  discontent,  and  a  strong 
and  firm  hand  would  often  be  needed 
in  carrying  out  such  a  purpose  as  this, 
but  one  may  confidently  predict  that 

peace  and  prosperity  are  made  nearer 
[no] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

by  this  approach  than  on  the  Hnes  of 
industrial  feudahsm.^ 

It  will  be  observed  also  that  such  a 
line  of  policy  eliminates  the  question 
of  the  closed  shop.  If  the  employer 
wishes  all  his  employees  to  belong  to 
the  union,  and  makes  it  clear  that 
union  men  are  favored,  the  reason  for 
a  closed  shop  practically  disappears. 
The  employer's  reason  for  an  open 
shop  is  his  need  of  a  force  near  at 
hand  to  fight  the  union;  when  he 
makes  the  union  his  ally  instead  of 
his  enemy,  non-unionism  becomes  both 
to  him  and  to  his  men  a  negligible 
quantity. 

The  man  who  takes  up  a  purpose 
of  this  kind,  whether  he  is  pro- 
prietor or  general  manager,  cannot 
be  guaranteed  an  easy  job.  It  will 
not  be  possible  for  him  to  turn  it  over 
'  Appendix  III. 
[hi] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

to  subordinates;  he  will  have  to  keep 
close  to  it  himself.  It  will  call  for 
labor,  for  self-control,  for  faith  in  men, 
for  all  the  best  qualities  of  mind  and 
heart.  Neither  in  the  State  nor  in 
the  factory  will  our  democracy  be 
fulfilled  wihout  patient,  heroic,  self- 
denying  work.  But  the  work  will  be 
rewarding.  Can  any  compensation  be 
higher  or  finer  than  that  of  the  man 
who  wins,  as  Baldwin  won,  the  loyal 
affection  of  scores  or  hundreds  or 
thousands  of  men;  who  helps  them  to 
stand  on  their  own  feet  and  work  out 
their  own  fortunes;  who  makes  them 
see  that  the  industry  by  which  they 
gain  their  livelihood  is  one  in  which 
they  have  a  real  stake,  so  that  they 
are  not  merely  dependents  on  it,  but, 
in  a  true  sense,  partners  in  it;  who 
sees  growing  up  around  him  a  com- 
munity of  friendly  men  with  some 
[112] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

sense  of  the  dignities  of  manhood  and 
the  responsibihties  of  citizenship  ?  No 
vocation  can  be  more  sacred  than  this, 
and  no  reward  more  satisfying. 


[113I 


IV 

CROSS-LIGHTS  AND  COUNTER- 
CLAIMS 


IV 

CROSS-LIGHTS  AND  COUNTER- 
CLAIMS 

IN  this  chapter  I  wish  to  deal  with  a 
variety  of  conflicting  phases  and 
aspects  of  the  labor  question  in 
which  partial  notions  are  involved  and 
by  which  misleading  judgments  are 
given  currency.  In  any  conflict  of  ideas 
or  policies  the  partisans  on  either  side 
are  apt  to  discern  with  great  clearness 
the  evil  consequences  which  would  fol- 
low if  the  policy  of  their  antagonists 
were  carried  to  extremes,  and  to  assume 
that  this  is  what  is  likely  to  happen. 
Neither  party,  however,  is  likely  to 
follow  its  own  policies  to  extreme  con- 
clusions, or  is  willing  to  admit  that 
[117I 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

such  a  thing  is  possible.  Each  party 
sees  the  best  possibiUties  in  its  own 
program  and  the  worst  in  that  of  its 
opponents.  It  would  be  well  to  re- 
verse this  method  now  and  then;  we 
should  get  a  better  perspective. 

The  employers  who  are  fighting  the 
unions  have  before  their  minds  vivid 
pictures  of  the  confusion  and  ruin 
which  would  ensue  if  the  cause  of  union- 
ism should  prevail.  If  all  the  industries 
were  unionized,  and  if  the  worst  prac- 
tises of  the  unions  should  become  uni- 
versal, the  injury  to  business,  say  the 
employers,  would  be  deadly.  With 
such  power  to  enforce  their  demands, 
the  tyranny  of  the  unions  would 
become  intolerable.  The  capitalist 
employer  would  lose  all  control  of  his 
business;  rules  would  be  made  which 
would  cripple  production;  no  manufac- 
turer could  be  certain,  if  he  made  a 
[118I 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

contract,  that  he  would  be  able  to  keep 
it;  profits  would  be  so  reduced  by  the 
constantly  rising  rate  of  wages  that 
there  would  be  no  adequate  reward  for 
business  enterprise;  the  value  of  costly 
buildings  and  machinery  would  be  con- 
stantly depreciated;  the  cost  of  pro- 
duction would  be  so  enhanced  that 
prices  would  rise  to  a  point  at  which 
consumption  would  be  curtailed,  and 
this,  in  turn,  would  check  production; 
from  industries  under  this  ban  capital 
would  be  withdrawn  as  rapidly  as  pos- 
sible, and  the  communities  thus  afflicted 
would  be  depopulated. 

This  is  a  picture  which  the  anti- 
unionist  is  fond  of  drawing.  It  is 
generally  overdrawn;  but  it  is  well  for 
the  unionist  to  take  a  good  look  at  it. 
There  is  in  it  enough  verisimilitude  to 
give  him  food  for  serious  thought.  It 
may  suggest  to  him  that  if  he  should 
[119] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

have  his  way  about  everything,  he 
might  produce  a  condition  of  things  in 
which  it  would  not  be  possible  for  him 
to  Hve.  That  is  not  a  rare  achieve- 
ment. The  ancient  sport  of  kilHng  the 
goose  that  lays  the  golden  egg  has  many 
votaries  in  modern  times. 

There  is  no  question  but  that  unions 
have  sometimes  carried  their  exactions 
so  far  as  to  cripple  industries  and 
paralyze  the  growth  of  communities. 
Instances  are  constantly  cited  by  anti- 
unionists;  I  will  not  mention  them, 
but  credible  reports  warrant  the  belief 
that  in  several  American  communities 
unionism  has  become  a  public  injury; 
by  its  greedy  aggressions  it  has  des- 
troyed the  enterprises  it  undertook  to 
regulate,  and  proved  itself  to  be  an 
unsocial  force.  It  is  well  for  all  union- 
ists to  keep  these  possibilities  steadily 

before  their  minds. 

[120] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

There  is  another  picture,  however, 
which  intelHgent  unionists  are  more  in 
the  habit  of  contemplating.  That  is 
the  picture  of  the  industrial  community 
in  modern  times  from  which  unionism 
has  been  forcibly  excluded.  We  have 
had  glimpses  of  these  conditions  in  a 
previous  article,  and  they  are  not  re- 
assuring. What  happened  in  England 
in  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century  is  sure  to  happen  anywhere, 
under  the  large  system  of  industry,  if 
the  working  classes  fail  to  unite  for 
their  own  protection.  Greed  is  as 
merciless  as  the  grave  and  as  blind  as 
fate;  it  overrides  and  tramples  on  all 
humane  considerations;  it  makes  the 
bodies  and  souls  of  men  its  prey.  The 
fate  of  the  working  class,  unorganized, 
in  contact  with  the  great  aggregations 
of  capital,  is  not  an  obscure  augury. 
The  pressure  of  competition  forces  the 

[121] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

labor  market  downward;  the  cost  of 
production  must  be  reduced  at  every 
point,  and  labor,  unorganized,  furnishes 
the  line  of  least  resistance.  Benevolent 
wishes  on  the  part  of  conscientious 
individual  employers  count  for  little. 
''What  would  you  do.?"  is  the  em- 
ployer's confident  demand.  "What 
right  have  I  to  raise  wages  .f'  Here  are 
hundreds  of  men  knocking  at  my  gates 
who  are  willing  to  do  my  work  for  what 
I  am  now  paying,  or  even  for  less. 
They  need  the  work.  Why  should  I 
not  give  it  to  them.?  Is  there  any 
better  regulator  of  wages  than  the  law 
of  supply  and  demand .? "  Such  reason- 
ing steadily  and  fatally  lessens  the  wage 
and  lengthens  the  working  day,  till  you 
find  unorganized  laborers  even  today, 
in  the  biggest  corporations  that  the 
world   has   ever   seen,   working   twelve 

hours  a  day  and  seven  days  in  a  week 
[122] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

for  a  compensation  that  barely  keeps 
body  and  soul  together. 

It  is  palpable,  of  course,  that  such  a 
pohcy  must  result  in  the  deterioration 
of  the  working  force.  The  standard  of 
living  goes  down  and  the  efficiency  of 
labor  goes  down  with  it,  so  that  it  is 
not  long  before  the  low  wages  buy  less 
work  than  the  high  wages  bought,  and 
the  cost  of  production  is  greater  than 
it  was  with  the  well-paid  labor.  What 
is  more,  the  great  mass  of  the  consumers 
are  wage-workers,  and  when  their  com- 
pensation is  cut  down,  they  have  less 
to  spend  and  the  demand  for  the  prod- 
ucts of  labor  is  reduced  and  trade  stag- 
nates and  orders  fall  off  at  the  mills 
and  the  factories  and  the  wheels  stop 
and  the  starving  laborers  stand  idle  in 
the  market-place  because  no  man  will 
hire  them. 

In  communities  as  intelligent  as  ours 
[123] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

such  conditions  breed  discontent,  which 
bodes  ill  to  the  peace  of  the  State.  So 
long  as  working  men  have  reason  to 
beheve  that  they  may  be  able  to  main- 
tain their  rights  by  combination,  they 
are  apt  to  give  a  wide  berth  to  revolu- 
tionary agitators;  but  when  it  becomes 
evident  that  this  resource  is  failing 
them,  the  propagandists  of  a  new  order 
find  them  accessible.  I  have  heard 
many  bitter  words  spoken  during  the 
last  summer  in  my  own  city,  not  by 
strikers,  but  by  working  men,  who  saw 
in  the  concerted  and  determined  efforts 
made  by  the  power-holding  classes  to 
crush  the  strike,  the  evidence  that  no 
resource  was  left  to  them  but  social 
revolution.  The  strike  was  crushed  in 
October,  and  the  Socialist  vote  in  No- 
vember was  increased  one  thousand  per 
cent. 

Now,  this  is  the  panorama  on  which 
[124] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

the  employing  classes  may  usefully 
fasten  their  gaze.  They  can  see  very 
distinctly  what  is  likely  to  happen  if 
unionism  prevails  and  the  unsocial  ten- 
dencies of  the  unions  are  triumphant; 
they  do  not,  as  a  rule,  give  any  careful 
attention  to  the  consequences  which 
are  sure  to  flow  from  the  triumph  of 
their  own  program.  Indeed,  they  are 
quite  as  blind  to  these  issues  as  the 
unions  are  to  the  industrial  paralysis 
which  their  own  aggressions  are  threat- 
ening. The  feudalism  which  they  seek 
to  establish  would  bring  lean  economic 
returns;  the  path  to  prosperity  is  not 
through  the  degradation  of  labor.  Con- 
sidering their  own  interests,  their  policy 
is  just  as  suicidal  as  that  of  the  ag- 
gressive labor  unions.  Nothing  worse 
could  happen  to  them  than  to  succeed 
in  their  efi^orts  to  abolish  the  unions. 
It  would  be  a  calamity  to  the  State 
[125] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

if  either  of  these  contending  policies 
should  win  a  complete  victory.  The 
subjugation  of  labor  by  capital  or  of 
capital  by  labor  would  mean,  of  course, 
the  downfall  of  the  present  industrial 
order  and  an  industrial  revolution  much 
more  sweeping  than  any  that  has  yet 
occurred  in  history.  Such  an  over- 
turning would  be  an  unspeakable  dis- 
aster. That  a  healthy  evolution  will 
carry  us  in  the  direction  of  the  collec- 
tive ownership  of  capital  is  altogether 
probable;  but  precipitation  into  that 
regime,  with  our  present  moral  and 
social  outfit,  would  result  in  terrible 
losses  to  civilization.  It  is,  above  all 
things,  needful  that  we  make  haste 
slowly  in  that  direction,  and  the  kind  of 
industrial  democracy  which  is  furnished 
by  the  frank  recognition  of  organized 
labor  and  friendly  cooperation  with  it 

affords  to  both  classes  just  the  kind  of 
[126] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

education  which  is  needed  to  prepare 
us  for  those  larger  cooperations  which 
are,  no  doubt,  in  store  for  us.  Along 
that  road  we  may  go  peacefully  and 
prosperously  toward  the  industrial 
commonwealth  of  the  future.  If  that 
road  is  blocked,  the  path  leads  over  a 
precipice. 

What  is  needed,  therefore,  is  a  serious 
consideration  by  each  of  these  contend- 
ing parties  of  the  consequences  which 
are  likely  to  follow  from  pushing  its 
own  policy  to  extremes,  and  a  resolute 
purpose  to  guard  against  those  excesses. 
No  unionist  is  in  a  position  to  demand 
the  recognition  of  his  union  till  he  has 
pruned  it  of  those  harsh  features  which 
naturally  exasperate  the  employer;  till 
it  has  shown  that  it  has  no  use  for  vio- 
lence or  lawlessness;  that  it  does  not 
mean  to  embarrass  production  by  petty 

restrictions;  that  it  intends  to  keep  all 
[127] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

its  contracts  to  the  letter,  to  main- 
tain high  standards  of  fideHty  and 
efficiency,  and  to  give  a  fair  day's 
work  for  a  fair  day's  wages.  Unions 
which  maintain  such  a  character  as 
this  will  find  it  less  difficult  to  obtain 
recognition. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  employer  is 
in  a  position  to  demand  that  his  men 
shall  maintain  this  high  standard  of 
industrial  ethics  so  long  as  he  denies  to 
them  the  primary  right  of  uniting  for 
the  protection  of  their  own  interests, 
and  insists  on  treating  such  unions  as 
outlaws  and  enemies.  The  injustice 
of  this  act  is  so  flagrant  that  he  has  no 
right  to  complain  of  any  misconduct  on 
the  part  of  his  men.  And  no  gratuities 
or  benevolences  that  he  may  practise 
toward  them  will  atone  for  this  denial 
of  their  rights.  When  their  rights  are 
fully  recognized  and  he  is  ready  to  meet 

fl28l 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

them  on  such  a  platform  of  equality 
as  collective  bargaining  provides,  he 
will  find  them  much  less  disposed  to 
resort  to  those  extreme  measures  of 
which  he  now  complains. 

I  come  now  to  speak  of  one  or  two 
matters  which  may  seem  of  slight  im- 
portance, but  which  deserve  some  seri- 
ous attention. 

Not  a  little  mischief  is  done  by  the 
indulgence  of  undiscriminating  and  in- 
temperate speech  on  both  sides  of  this 
controversy.  The  labor  press  often 
makes  use  of  very  ungentle  terms  in 
describing  the  acts  and  judging  the 
motives  of  the  employing  class.  Some 
of  the  employers  deserve  these  hot 
words,  but  not  all  of  them;  there  are 
many  among  them  who  are  sincerely 
desirous  of  finding  a  just  solution  of  all 
these  problems.  Sweeping  denuncia- 
tions of  the  capitalist  class  are  not  only 
[129] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

unfair,  they  are  highly  impoHtic.  They 
tend  to  aHenate  friends  whose  support 
would  be  valuable  to  the  cause  of 
unionism. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  hear  from  men 
whose  intellectual  opportunities  should 
have  taught  them  more  temperate 
habits  of  speech,  judgments  upon  the 
entire  laboring  class  which  are  astonish- 
ingly unjust.  One  who  knows  the 
working  people  of  the  United  States  — 
those  of  foreign  birth  as  well  as  those 
who  were  born  upon  our  soil  —  listens 
with  surprise  and  pain  to  what  is  said 
about  them  by  many  who  do  not  know 
them  at  all.  Certainly  they  are  not 
all  saints  or  angels;  doubtless  many  of 
them  are  not  so  wise  or  good  as  we 
could  wish  them  to  be;  but  the  kind  of 
speech  which  we  are  accustomed  to 
hear  about  them  is  fearfully  unjust. 
I  hear  men  talk  as  though  there  were 
[130] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

no  fidelity  or  honor  or  honesty  among 
American  working  men  —  as  if  they 
were  all  shirks  and  malingerers  and  eye- 
servants;  as  though  they  had  no  other 
motive  than  to  get  the  largest  possible 
stipend  for  the  least  possible  service. 
Especially  true  are  these  harsh  judg- 
ments assumed  to  be  of  trade-union- 
ists; of  them  it  is  not  possible  for  some 
Christian  people  to  believe  anything 
good. 

It  is  a  pity  that  those  who  harbor 
such  hard  feelings  could  not  get  better 
acquainted  with  their  neighbors.  I 
am  sure  that  they  would  find  among 
these  working  people  —  even  among 
trade-unionists  —  a  goodly  number  of 
honest,  faithful,  fair-minded  men  and 
women.  It  would  be  a  sorry  thing  for 
this  Nation  if  the  great  mass  of  its  citi- 
zens were  as  lacking  in  the  sound  ele- 
ments of  character  as  many  of  these 
[131] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

wholesale  judgments  assume  that  they 
are.  For  my  part,  I  do  not  find  them 
so.  I  believe  that,  take  them  all  in  all, 
they  are  as  trustworthy  and  reasonable 
and  honorable  and  kind-hearted  as  are 
the  more  cultured  and  prosperous 
classes.  The  hope  of  the  Nation  lies, 
I  believe,  in  the  essential  worthiness  of 
these  wage-workers.  Something  is  the 
matter  with  the  patriotism  of  the  man 
who  maligns  them.  And  the  man  who 
can  see  but  little  good  in  them  ought 
not  to  have  any  dealings  with  them. 
His  intercourse  with  them  can  bring 
nothing  but  harm  to  him  and  to  them. 
He  is  not  fit  for  any  responsible  place 
in  the  kingdom  of  industry,  and  will 
not  be  until  he  gets  a  new  heart. 

Another  subject  on  which   there  is 

need  of  some  revision  of  judgment  is 

the    "walking    delegate,"    or   business 

agent,  as  he  is  now  generally  named. 

[132] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

The  almost  universal  impression  among 
the  employing  classes  seems  to  be  that 
these  representatives  of  the  unions  are, 
as  a  rule,  depraved  persons  with  crimi- 
nal antecedents  and  none  but  sinister 
purposes.  This  judgment  is  formed, 
in  most  cases,  on  very  slight  acquaint- 
ance. Again  I  must  protest  that  I 
have  not  found  this  judgment  just. 

There  are  historic  instances  of  thor- 
oughly bad  men  obtaining  and  holding 
the  leadership  of  labor  unions.  But 
the  same  thing  has  been  true  of 
churches,  and  the  people  sometimes 
choose  bad  men  to  rule  our  cities  and 
to  represent  them  in  Congress.  I  am 
not  sure  that  the  unions  are  not  as  suc- 
cessful in  the  choice  of  leaders  as  are 
the  religious  and  the  political  organiza- 
tions. In  the  great  majority  of  cases 
it  will  be  found,  I  think,  that  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  unions  are  clean,  fair- 
[133] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

minded,  upright  men.  Nor  is  it  true 
that  most  labor  disputes  are  due  to 
their  instigation.  Employers  are  apt 
to  charge  all  disaffection  among  their 
employees  to  the  influence  of  "walking 
delegates,"  but  this  is  by  no  means  the 
rule.  The  trouble  generally  begins 
before  any  labor  leader  is  called  in,  and 
the  influence  of  these  leaders  in  the  ad- 
justment of  such  difl^culties  is  apt  to  be 
conservative.  The  worst  strike  I  have 
known  in  Ohio  was  voted  by  the  men 
against  the  strenuous  protest  of  their 
leader.  Only  the  other  day  in  Chicago 
the  business  agent  of  the  garment- 
makers  arranged  a  settlement  with  the 
employers  which  the  union  itself  vio- 
lently repudiated,  driving  their  agent 
from  the  hall.  The  habitual  refusal  of 
employers  to  have  any  dealings  with 
accredited  representatives  of  the  unions 
is  not  only  unjust,  it  is  extremely 
[134] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

unwise.  Those  employers  who  have 
received  these  representatives  and  have 
entered  into  amicable  relations  with 
them  have  generally  found  them  intelli- 
gent and  reasonable.  One  employer  in 
Ohio,  after  spending  half  a  million  dol- 
lars in  fighting  against  the  recognition 
of  the  union,  changed  his  mind  and 
entered  into  a  labor  agreement  with 
the  union  through  its  representatives. 
After  two  or  three  years  of  this  experi- 
ence he  told  me  that  everything  was 
going  well  at  the  mine.  "In  fact,"  he 
said,  "it  is  far  easier  dealing  with  an 
intelligent  and  responsible  man  than 
with  a  mob."  If  employers  generally 
could  get  rid  of  some  of  their  supersti- 
tions about  "walking  delegates"  and 
could  meet  them  man-fashion,  they 
might  often  find  it  greatly  to  their 
advantage. 

The  question  of  the  open  or  closed 
1 135] 


THE   LABOR    QUESTION 

shop  is  one  around  which  just  now  the 
battle  rages.  As  was  said  in  a  previous 
chapter,  this  question  is  practically 
eliminated  by  the  determination  of  the 
employer  to  give  full  recognition  to  the 
union  and  to  let  it  be  known  that  he 
desires  all  his  workmen  to  belong  to  it. 
Under  such  conditions  it  is  not  probable 
that  enough  men  would  remain  outside 
to  cause  any  trouble.  If  it  is  the  em- 
ployer's policy,  not  to  fight  the  union, 
but  to  establish  living  and  cooperative 
relations  with  it,  he  will  have  no  more 
use  for  non-unionists  than  the  union 
itself  has,  and  it  is  not  likely  that 
non-unionism  would  thrive  in  that  at- 
mosphere. If  the  contention  of  these 
chapters  is  valid,  this  is  the  only  atti- 
tude toward  the  union  which  can  be 
taken  by  a  right-minded  employer,  and 
it  effectually  disposes  of  the  question  of 
the  closed  shop.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
[136] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

the  employer  wishes  to  maintain  an 
unfriendly  attitude  toward  the  union, 
and  to  put  as  many  obstacles  as  he  can 
in  the  way  of  the  organization  of  his 
men,  of  course  he  will  stand  for  the  open 
shop  and  use  his  influence  to  keep  the 
non-union  contingent  as  large  as  possi- 
ble, that  he  may  have  a  strong  force  at 
hand  to  fight  the  union  when  a  strike 
occurs.  This  creates  a  situation  which 
is  nearly  impossible,  and  justifies  the 
men  in  demanding  a  closed  shop. 

I  see  no  reason  why  the  kind  of 
agreement  entered  into  last  Septem- 
ber between  the  Manufacturers'  Asso- 
ciation of  New  York  and  the  Garment 
Workers'  Unions  of  that  city  might  not 
be  widely  adopted.  After  a  definite 
fixing  of  the  hours  of  work  and  the 
rates  of  compensation  in  all  the  shops 
concerned,  this  agreement  follows: 

"Each  member  of  the  Manufacturers 
[137] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

[Association]  is  to  maintain  a  union 
shop;  a  'union  shop'  being  understood 
to  refer  to  a  shop  where  union  standards 
as  to  working  conditions,  hours  of  labor, 
and  rates  of  wages  as  herein  provided 
prevail,  and  where,  when  hiring  help, 
union  men  are  preferred ;  it  being  recog- 
nized that,  since  there  are  differences  in 
degrees  of  skill  among  those  employed 
in  the  trade,  employers  shall  have  free- 
dom of  selection  as  between  one  union 
man  and  another,  and  shall  not  be  con- 
fined to  any  list,  nor  bound  to  follow 
any  prescribed  agreement  whatever. 
It  is  further  understood  that  all  exist- 
ing agreements  and  obligations  of  the 
employer,  including  those  to  present 
employees,  shall  be  respected;  the 
Manufacturers^  however^  declare  their 
belief  in  the  union,  and  that  all  who  desire 
its  benefits  should  share  in  its  burdens. ^^ 
This  seems  a  most  liberal  and  reason- 
[138] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

able  contract,  fair  and  honorable  alike 
to  employers  and  employed.  What 
the  employers  say,  in  the  phrases  itali- 
cized above,  is  a  notable  confession  of 
faith  and  a  cogent  statement  of  indus- 
trial morals.  When  all  employers  are 
ready  to  put  their  hands  to  such  a 
declaration,  the  labor  question  will  be 
well  advanced  toward  a  solution. 

If  what  these  employers  say  is  true, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  non- 
unionist  is  not  left  in  an  exalted  posi- 
tion. There  has  been  a  tendency  in 
certain  quarters  to  make  him  a  hero, 
but,  if  the  reasoning  of  these  articles 
is  sound,  this  is  rather  more  than  is  due 
him.  He  is  one  who  insists  on  enjoy- 
ing the  benefits  of  labor  organization 
without  sharing  its  burdens.  That  is 
something  less  than  heroic. 

My  own  mind  is  clear  upon  the 
proposition  that  if  I  were  a  wage- 
[139I 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

worker  in  any  trade  I  should  feel 
under  obligation  to  join  the  trade- 
union.  It  is  so  entirely  plain  to  me 
that  the  freedom  of  the  working  class 
can  be  maintained  in  these  days  only 
by  firm  organization  that  I  could  not 
get  the  consent  of  my  conscience  to 
stay  outside  the  union.  And  I  am 
equally  sure  that  I  could  not  feel  any 
very  enthusiastic  admiration  for  men 
of  my  own  trade  who  refused  to  join 
the  union  and  did  what  they  could  to 
defeat  its  purposes.  I  trust  that  I 
should  be  able  to  refrain  from  apply- 
ing to  them  opprobrious  epithets  and 
from  assailing  them  with  brickbats, 
but  I  should  not  be  able  to  hold  them 
in  high  honor. 

One  of  the  strongest  of  recent  writers 
on  political  science,  Mr.  Herbert  Croly, 
bears  this  testimony: 

"The   labor   unions   deserve   to   be 
[  140  ] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

favored  because  they  are  the  most 
effective  machinery  which  has  as  yet 
been  forged  for  the  economic  and  social 
ameHoration  of  the  laboring  class. 
They  have  helped  to  raise  the  standard 
of  living,  to  mitigate  the  rigors  of  com- 
petition among  individual  laborers,  and 
in  this  way  to  secure  for  labor  a  larger 
share  of  the  industrial  product.  A 
democratic  government  has  little  or 
less  reason  to  interfere  on  behalf  of  the 
non-union  laborer  than  it  has  to  inter- 
fere on  behalf  of  the  small  producer. 
As  a  type  the  non-union  laborer  is  a 
species  of  industrial  derelict.  He  is  the 
laborer  who  has  gone  astray,  and  who, 
either  from  apathy,  unintelligence,  in- 
competence, or  some  immediately  press- 
ing need,  prefers  his  own  individual 
interest  to  the  joint  interests  of  himself 
and  his  fellow-laborers ....  From  any 
comprehensive  point  of  view,  union, 
[141] 


THE     LABOR   QUESTION 

and  not  non-union,  labor  represents 
the  independence  of  the  laborer,  be- 
cause, under  existing  circumstances, 
such  independence  must  be  brought  by 
association."  ^ 

The  joint  agreement  between  the 
garment  workers  and  their  employers, 
from  which  I  have  already  quoted, 
contains  also  a  definite  provision  for  the 
arbitration  of  all  differences  arising 
between  the  two  parties,  who  bind 
themselves  to  abide  by  the  decision  of 
the  arbitrators;  also  stipulating  that  if 
any  dispute  shall  arise,  "the  parties  to 
this  protocol  agree  that  there  shall  be 
no  strike  or  lockout  concerning  such 
matters  in  controversy  until  full  oppor- 
tunity shall  have  been  given  for  the 
submission  of  such  matters  to  said 
Board  of  Arbitration,  and,  in  the  event 

^  The  Promise  of  American  Life,  pp.  387- 
388. 

[  142  ] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

of  a  determination  of  such  controversies 
by  said  Board  of  Arbitration,  only  in 
the  event  of  a  failure  to  accede  to  the 
determination  of  said  Board."  All 
disputes  are  to  be  arbitrated  and  a 
Board  of  Arbitration  appointed;  no 
strikes  nor  lockouts  are  to  be  allowed 
until  the  decision  has  been  rendered, 
and  then  only  in  case  one  of  the  par- 
ties breaks  its  contract  and  refuses  to 
abide  by  the  decision. 

Is  not  such  a  provision  for  the  peace- 
ful settlement  of  disputes  possible  in 
any  industry?  Is  any  man's  dignity 
or  honor  compromised  by  entering  into 
such  a  compact.?  Would  it  not  save 
both  for  capital  and  for  labor  millions 
of  dollars  every  year,  and  put  an 
end  to  the  industrial  warfare  which 
embitters  our  lives  and  threatens  our 
liberties? 

The  civilized  world  is  rapidly  coming 
[143] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

to  the  conviction  that  all  international 
disputes  may,  and  must,  be  settled  by 
arbitration.  In  view  of  that  fact,  it 
seems  absurd  to  contend  that  there  are 
any  industrial  disputes  which  cannot 
be  settled  in  the  same  way.  The 
demand  is  loud  from  a  long-suffering 
community  that  industrial  war  shall 
cease.  The  day  is  near  when  the  com- 
batant in  this  arena  who  has  "nothing 
to  arbitrate"  will  be  recognized  as  an 
enemy  of  society. 

Especially  true  is  this  of  labor  dis- 
putes in  public  service  companies.  It 
is  about  time  that  the  managers  of  such 
companies  were  made  to  understand 
that  the  people  do  not  put  franchises 
into  their  hands  to  be  used  as  weapons 
of  war.  In  all  these  industries  in  which 
the  State  or  the  city  is  a  partner,  the 
State  or  the  city  is  bound  to  keep 
the  peace.  No  franchise  ought  to  be 
[144] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

granted  to  a  public  service  company 
which  does  not  contain  expHcit  and 
stringent  provisions  requiring  the  sub- 
mission to  arbitration  of  all  disputes 
arising  between  the  managers  and  the 
men.  It  ought  to  be  made  a  misde- 
meanor for  the  men  to  strike  until  the 
question  has  been  fully  arbitrated;  and 
the  refusal  of  the  company  to  arbitrate 
or  to  abide  by  the  decision  of  the  arbi- 
trators ought  to  result  in  the  forfeiture 
of  its  charter.^ 

This  raises  the  serious  question  as  to 
the  regulation  by  the  State  or  the  Na- 
tion of  industrial  organizations.  We 
are  undertaking,  in  some  rather  dras- 
tic ways,  to  regulate  corporations; 
there  seems  to  be  equal  reason  why  we 
should  take  trade-unions  in  hand  and, 
while  giving  them  explicit  recognition, 
establish  certain  definite  principles  to 
^  See  Appendix  IV. 
[145] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

which,  in  their  organization  and  opera- 
tion, they  must  conform.  It  seems 
inconceivable  that  an  interest  so  vast 
as  this,  affecting  the  pubhc  welfare  in 
so  many  ways,  should  be  allowed  to 
shape  its  own  policies  and  choose  its 
own  ends  with  no  efficient  direction  by 
the  commonwealth.  I  am  not  clear 
about  the  incorporation  of  the  unions, 
but  I  am  sure  that  the  Nation  must  find 
some  way  of  defining  their  powers  and 
privileges,  and  giving  them  a  rightful 
and  honorable  place  in  the  National 
life.  Precisely  how  this  is  to  be  done 
I  will  not  undertake,  at  the  present 
moment,  to  point  out.  I  am  only  sure 
that  our  lawmakers  have  some  very 
important  constructive  work  to  do  in 
the  organization  of  our  industries,  and 
that  they  cannot  get  about  it  too  soon.^ 

^  See    The   Promise   of  American   Life,   by 
Herbert  Croly,  Chapter  XH. 
[146] 


V 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  LABOR 
QUESTION 


V 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  LABOR 
QUESTION 

WHAT  business  has  the  Church 
with  the  Labor  Question? 
Is  it  not  an  economic  ques- 
tion? What  right  has  the  Church  to 
meddle  with  matters  purely  secular? 
Why  does  she  not  confine  herself  to 
spiritual  interests,  and  find  her  func- 
tion in  inspiring  men  with  right  concep- 
tions and  pure  motives,  leaving  them 
to  make  their  own  application  of  the 
principles  she  teaches  to  the  affairs 
of  life?  Is  there  not  danger  that  the 
Church  will  make  grave  mistakes  if 
she  undertakes  to  deal  with  these 
difficult  problems  of  modern  industrial 
[  149  ] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

organization?  Would  it  not  be  better 
for  the  Church  to  adhere  to  her  own 
proper  function  of  saving  souls  and 
comforting  sorrows  and  fitting  men 
for  heaven?  Do  we  want  these  dis- 
turbing questions  of  the  labor  market 
brought  into  the  sanctuary?  Must  it 
not  have  a  tendency  to  irritate  many 
hearers  and  drive  them  away  from  the 
churches? 

Questions  of  this  tenor  are  often 
heard,  even  in  this  generation;  and 
the  attitude  of  mind  which  these  ques- 
tions imply  is  the  prevailing  attitude 
in  a  great  many  of  our  more  influential 
churches.  It  seems,  therefore,  to  be 
necessary,  at  the  close  of  the  first 
decade  of  the  twentieth  century,  to 
give  some  heed  to  such  scruples. 

It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to 
say  that  they  arise  out  of  a  concep- 
tion of  human  life  which  is  not  any 
[150] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

longer  entertained   by  thoughtful  men 

—  namely,  that  it  is  divided  into 
two    non-communicating    hemispheres 

—  the  sacred  and  the  secular;  religion 
being  an  interest  by  itself,  with  motives, 
principles,  and  laws  of  its  own,  and 
the  rest  of  life  being  under  the  control 
of  ideas  and  forces  with  which  religion 
has  nothing  to  do.  Some  such  con- 
ception as  this  prevailed  in  evangel- 
ical circles  fifty  years  ago;  when  Mr. 
Beecher  began  to  preach  the  doctrine 
that  all  life  is  sacred,  the  idea  came  with 
a  shock  to  most  "  professors  of  religion." 
Of  course  this  notion  was  taught  with 
varying  emphasis;  there  were  many 
to  whom  the  close  correspondence  be- 
tween faith  and  conduct  was  evident, 
but  the  tendency  to  keep  morals  and 
religion  in  separate  compartments  was 
very  strong  within  the  memory  of  some 
who  are  now  alive.     The  recently  pub- 

[iSi] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

lished  confessions  of  Uncle  Daniel 
Drew  refresh  our  memory  with  forms 
of  speech  which  were  once  familiar, 
and  set  before  us  a  habit  of  thought 
about  religion  which  was  prevalent  not 
very  long  ago.  When  Uncle  Daniel 
tells  us  about  the  way  he  spent  his 
Sundays  during  his  exile  in  Jersey  City 
when  he  was  engaged  in  one  of  the 
colossal  robberies  by  which  he  won 
distinction  —  how  he  needed  in  those 
exciting  days  the  comfort  which  only 
the  sanctuary  could  give,  and  how  he 
felt  that  he,  as  the  "only  Christian'* 
among  those  bold  buccaneers,  must 
set  them  a  good  example  by  piously 
attending  church  —  we  get  a  vivid 
illustration  of  the  state  of  mind  to 
which  I  have  referred.  And  when,  a 
little  later  in  the  story,  the  same 
eminent  saint  mentions  a  sermon, 
which  he  had  lately  heard,  on  making 
[152] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

the  Lord  a  partner  in  your  business, 
and  deplores  the  fact  that  we  have  so 
much  of  that  kind  of  preaching  now- 
adays, we  discern  the  same  mental 
attitude  as  that  which  finds  expres- 
sion in  the  questions  we  are  considering. 
Briefly,  then,  we  may  say  that  the 
labor  question  is  in  part  an  economic 
question,  and  that  all  economic  questions 
are  fundamentally  religious  questions; 
that  there  are  no  purely  spiritual 
interests,  since  the  spiritual  forces  all 
incarnate  themselves  in  the  facts  of 
every-day  life,  and  can  only  be  known 
as  they  are  there  manifested;  that 
there  is  indeed  danger  that  the  Church 
will  make  mistakes  in  dealing  with 
such  questions,  but  that  the  greatest 
of  all  her  mistakes  is  in  ignoring  them; 
that  there  are  no  souls  that  more  need 
saving  than  the  souls  that  are  getting 
entangled  in  the  materialisms  that 
[153] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

undervalue  manhood;  and  that  there 
are  no  people  who  need  moral  guidance 
more  than  those  who  are  grappling 
with  the  manifold  phases  of  the  labor 
question.  That  some  of  them  resent 
the  truth  about  this  matter  is  a  sad 
fact,  but  that  is  not  a  good  reason  for 
suppressing  the  truth;  and  there  must 
be  many  among  them  who  are  ready 
to  know  the  truth  and  from  whom  it 
would  be  a  crime  to  conceal  it.  While, 
therefore,  the  preacher  knows  that  to 
some  of  his  hearers  the  truth,  no  matter 
how  wisely  and  kindly  spoken,  will  be 
**a  savor  of  death  unto  death,"  it  is 
his  business  to  tell  the  truth  for  the 
sake  of  those  to  whom  it  will  be  *'a 
savor  of  life  unto  life."^ 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  Church 
cannot  deal  in  any  explicit  and  con- 
crete  fashion  with   these   labor   prob- 
See  Appendix  V. 
[154] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

lems;  that  the  utmost  she  can  do  is 
to  enunciate  ethical  principles;  that 
she  must  not  venture  to  apply  them. 
But  if  Scriptural  examples  are  of  any 
validity,  it  is  clear  that  Amos  and 
Hosea  and  Micah  and  Isaiah  and  Jere- 
miah knew  how  to  apply  principles 
to  concrete  cases.  All  these  Hebrew 
prophets  deal  in  the  most  direct  and 
explicit  manner  with  the  social  injus- 
tices then  prevailing.  They  did  not 
content  themselves  with  enunciating 
ethical  principles,  they  made  the  appli- 
cation in  the  most  pungent  fashion. 
*' Forasmuch  therefore,"  cries  Amos, 
"as  your  treading  is  upon  the  poor, 
and  ye  take  from  him  burdens  of  wheat: 
ye  have  built  houses  of  hewn  stone, 
but  ye  shall  not  dwell  in  them;  ye 
have  planted  pleasant  vineyards,  but 
ye  shall  not  drink  wine  of  them.  For 
I  know  your  manifold  transgressions 
[155] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

and  your  mighty  sins:  they  afflict  the 
just,  they  take  a  bribe,  and  they  turn 
aside  the  poor  in  the  gate  from  their 
right."  "Woe  unto  them,"  echoes 
Micah,  "that  devise  iniquity,  and  work 
evil  upon  their  beds!  when  the  morn- 
ing is  Hght,  they  practise  it,  because 
it  is  in  the  power  of  their  hand.  And 
they  covet  fields,  and  take  them  by 
violence;  and  houses,  and  take  them 
away:  so  they  oppress  a  man  and  his 
house,  even  a  man  and  his  heritage." 
It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that 
the  burden  of  these  Hebrew  prophets 
was  the  social  inequality  of  their 
time,  and  that  it  was  in  their  struggle 
against  the  oppression  of  the  weak 
by  the  strong  that  they  came  to  their 
clear  consciousness  of  a  righteous  God. 
Doubtless  these  were  disturbing  mes- 
sages ;  doubtless  many  of  the  well-to-do 
were  alienated  from  the  Church  by 
[156] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

this  trenchant  testimony;  but  it  was 
spoken,  nevertheless,  and  it  remains 
to  the  world  an  imperishable  legacy. 

Much  of  Christ's  preaching  on  social 
topics  has  no  lack  of  definiteness,  and 
the  concluding  chapters  of  most  of  the 
Epistles  would  be  suggestive  reading 
for  those  who  think  that  the  Church 
must  avoid  the  application  of  Christian 
principles  to  actual  human  conditions. 
James,  the  brother  of  our  Lord,  may 
be  supposed  to  be  familiar  with  our 
Lord's  point  of  view.  His  words  recall 
the  old  prophets:  "Go  to,  ye  rich,  weep 
and  howl  for  your  miseries  that  are 
coming  upon  you.  Your  riches  are  cor- 
rupted, and  your  garments  are  moth- 
eaten.  Your  gold  and  silver  are  rusted ; 
and  their  rust  shall  be  for  a  testimony 
against  you,  and  shall  eat  your  flesh  as 
fire.  Ye  have  laid  up  your  treasure  in 
the  last  days.  Behold,  the  hire  of  the 
[157] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

laborers  who  have  mowed  your  fields, 
which  is  by  you  kept  back  by  fraud, 
crieth  out:  and  the  cries  of  them  that 
reaped  have  entered  into  the  ears  of  the 
Lord  of  Sabaoth.  Ye  have  lived  deli- 
cately on  the  earth,  and  taken  your 
pleasure;  ye  have  nourished  your 
hearts  in  a  day  of  slaughter.  Ye  have 
condemned,  ye  have  killed  the  righteous 
one:  he  doth  not  resist  you."  If  we 
faithfully  expound  the  Scripture,  we 
shall  surely  be  compelled  to  do  a  good 
deal  of  preaching  of  a  very  direct  and 
concrete  sort  on  the  labor  question. 

It  will  be  admitted  that  the  chief 
interest  of  the  Church  is  in  character. 
Its  business  in  the  world  is  primarily 
the  production  of  good  character,  the 

I  building  up  of  sound,  clean,  upright, 
neighborly  men.     In   this   commercial 

j  age    such    character    is    mainly   made 

I  or   lost    in    the   pursuits   of  industry. 

^  [158] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

Whether  a  business  man  becomes  a 
good  man  or  not,  depends  mainly  on 
the  way  in  which  he  manages  his  busi- 
ness. He  may  be  a  good  husband  and 
father,  charitable  to  the  poor,  and  a 
devout  church  member,  but  if  in  his 
business  he  is  greedy,  hard-hearted, 
unjust,  and  tyrannical,  the  core  of  his 
character  is  bad.  In  the  prevailing  in- 
terest of  his  life  his  conduct  is  defective 
and  it  makes  him  essentially  a  bad  man. 
Now  the  Church  has  in  her  membership 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  whose 
characters  are  being  formed  by  their 
business  practises.  She  owes  to  these 
men  the  instruction  and  the  moral 
guidance  by  which  they  may  be  saved 
from  the  fatal  losses  of  manhood  to 
which  they  are  exposed,  and  established 
in  virtue  and  honor.  She  must  not  say 
that  she  has  no  knowledge  of  these 
questions.  She  has  no  right  to  be 
[159] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

ignorant  concerning  practises  that  are 
blunting  the  consciences  and  destroying 
the  souls  of  millions  of  her  own  mem- 
bers. In  truth,  this  ignorance  is 
largely  feigned.  The  ethical  principles 
involved  in  all  these  transactions  are 
clear,  and  there  is  no  more  danger  of 
error  in  dealing  with  them  than  is  in- 
volved in  any  attempt  to  apply  the 
principles  of  morality  to  the  conduct  of 
life.  Always  there  is  need  of  caution, 
of  discretion,  of  just  and  balanced 
treatment  of  such  problems,  but  this 
is  not  a  reason  why  they  should  be 
ignored.  Even  bungling  attempts  to 
help  men  into  the  right  way  —  if  they 
are  only  honest  and  sincere  —  are  far 
less  dangerous  than  a  cowardly  avoid- 
ance. When  the  Church  in  the  person 
of  the  priest  and  the  Levite  passed  by 
the  wounded  man  on  the  Jericho  road, 

it  may  have  pleaded  that  it  was  not 
[i6o] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

expert  in  caring  for  such  cases.  The 
Church  can  better  afford  to  make  manjr^^„^ 
mistakes  in  enforcing  the  Christian  law  j 
of  industrial  relations  than  to  give  the|  ■ 
impression  that  the  Christian  law  has' 
nothing  to  do  with  industrial  relations.! 
In  fact,  it  has  everything  to  do  with; 
them,  and  the  Church  is  not  dealing 
fairly  with  a  great  multitude  of  its  own 
members  when  it  fails  to  show  themi 
just  how  the  Christian  law  does  applyi 
to  those  relations  with  their  fellow-' 
men  in  which,  more  than  in  any  other 
portion  of  their  lives,  the  great  values' 
of  character  are  gained  or  lost.  _  f 
Beyond  all  this,  the  Church  may 
well  recognize  some  responsibility  for 
the  moral  condition  of  the  millions  of 
the  working  people  —  many  of  whom 
are  outside  her  membership.  Her  ac- 
cess to  them  is  not,  unhappily,  so  direct 
as  to  the  employing  class,  but  she  must 
[i6i] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

not,  therefore,  ignore  their  moral  need. 
And  it  is  perhaps  no  less  true  of  the 
working  people  than  of  their  employers 
that  their  characters  are  profoundly 
affected  by  the  manner  in  which  they 
deal  with  what  we  call  the  Labor 
Question.  I  do  not  doubt  that  in  the 
struggles  and  sacrifices  of  this  conflict 
some  precious  gains  of  character  are 
made;  men  and  women  learn  to  prefer 
the  common  good  to  individual  gain 
and  to  bear  one  another's  burdens. 
For  all  this  we  ought  to  be  thankful. 
But  no  one  can  pass  through  a  severe 
labor  struggle  without  becoming  pain- 
fully aware  that  the  combatants  on 
both  sides  are  suffering  vast  moral 
injuries.  War  is  hell,  industrial  war 
not  less  than  international  war;  and 
because  it  is  war  among  neighbors,  the 
enmity  engendered  is  apt  to  be  more 
fierce  and  violent  than  that  which  we 
[  162  ] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

feel  toward  a  foreign  foe.  And  often 
we  find  whole  populations  swept  with 
hot  blasts  of  anger,  and  men  and  women 
who  are  ordinarily  kindly  and  humane 
cherishing  the  bitterest  antipathies 
and  pouring  out  the  most  terrible  exe- 
crations against  their  fellow  citizens. 
Nothing  more  ominous  can  be  con- 
ceived than  such  a  social  inflammation. 
Out  of  it  naturally  spring  violence 
and  lawlessness;  but  even  if  these  are 
restrained,  the  seething  of  such  passions 
bodes  ill  to  the  peace  and  health  of 
industrial  society.  Populations  which 
have  been  through  such  an  experience 
are  seriously  unfitted  by  it  for  good 
citizenship. 

It  is  possible  that  some  churches  may 
not  care  much  about  this.  They  may 
say  that  they  do  not  recognize  social 
responsibilities.  Even  such  churches 
cannot,  however,  deny  that  the  moral 
[163] 


THE   LABOR    QUESTION 

welfare  of  these  millions  of  working 
men  ought  to  be  a  matter  of  concern 
to  them.  And  can  it  be  doubted  that 
the  moral  well-being  of  great  multi- 
tudes is  seriously  impaired  by  the 
engendering  of  passions  and  hatreds 
in    these    labor    wars?     Good    church 

r 

I  members  have  confessed  to  me  during 
the  past  few  months  that  they  were 
[conscious  of  losing  their  hold  on  all  the 
(supports  of  religion;  that  there  was  so 
'much  bitterness  in  their  hearts  that 
they  did  not  want  to  go  to  church,  and 
that  it  was  hard  for  them  to  pray. 
With  those  who  owned  no  allegiance  to 
Ithe  Church  the  case  was  probably  no 
better.  Is  not  the  Church  concerned 
with  the  fact  that  conditions  exist 
■under  which  great  masses  of  the  people 
round  about  it  are  getting  into   this 

tstate  of  mind .? 

I 

'    Let  us  admit  that  the  main  business 
[164]  """~" 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

of  the  Church  is  saving  souls.  I  am 
ready  to  agree  to  this  if  it  is  understood 
that  souls  are  just  people,  men  and 
women.  But  give  the  phrase  any 
meaning  you  will,  and  is  it  not  plain 
that  the  Church  will  find  it  hard  work 
to  save  souls  that  are  inflamed  and 
embittered  by  these  labor  contests, 
especially  when  there  is  among  them 
a  widespread  resentment  against  the 
Church,  growing  out  of  a  belief  that 
its  sympathies  are  with  their  antago- 
nists.? Is  the  Church  likely  to  make 
much  headway  with  its  evangelistic 
work  in  populations  thus  affected.?  Is 
it  not  clear  that  something  must  be 
done  to  remove  these  misapprehensions 
and  allay  these  resentments,  before 
anything  effectual  can  be  done  in  the 
way  of  ** saving  souls"? 

How  shall  the  Church  go  to  work  to 
get  these  people  into  a  better  temper? 
[165I 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

Surely  that  must  be  one  of  her  urgent 
tasks.  It  will  not  be  wise  for  her  to 
begin  by  reproving  the  resentments 
of  the  working  people  and  counseling 
submission.  It  will  not  do  for  her  to 
assume  that  these  uprisings  on  their' 
part  are  mainly  due  to  moral  depravity. 
It  will  be  necessary  for  her  to  show 
that  she  is  aware  of  the  fact  that  under- 
neath all  these  surface  eruptions  of 
selfishness  and  passion  there  are  fun- 
damental questions  of  social  justice; 
and  that  she  is  able  to  deal  with  thesc- 
questions  intelligently  and  fairly.  It 
is  not  of  much  use  to  preach  peace  to 
insurgent  laborers  so  long  as  they  are 
in  doubt  as  to  whether  you  are  willing 
that  they  should  have  justice. 

The  most  cheering  sign  that  has  yet 
appeared  in  our  sky  of  an  improved 
attitude  of  the  Church  upon  this  ques- 
tion is  the  "Declaration  of  Principles" 
[i66] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

unanimously  adopted  by  the  federal 
Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in 
America  —  an  organization  represent- 
ing seventeen  millions  of  Protestant 
church  members: 

"We  deem  it  the  duty  of  all  Chris- 
tian people  to  concern  themselves  di- 
rectly with  certain  practical  industrial 
problems.  To  us  it  seems  that  the 
churches    must    stand  — 

"For  equal  rights  and  complete  jus- 
tice to  all  men  in  all  stations  of  life. 

"For  the  right  of  all  men  to  the  op- 
portunity for  self-maintenance,  a  right 
ever  to  be  strongly  safeguarded  against 
encroachments  of  every  kind. 

"For  the  right  of  workers  to  some 
protection  against  the  hardships  often 
resulting  from  the  swift  crises  of  indus- 
trial change. 

"For    the    principle    of  conciliation 

and  arbitration  in  industrial  disputes. 
[167] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

"For  the  protection  of  the  worker 
from  dangerous  machinery,  occupa- 
tional disease,  injuries,  and  mor- 
aUty. 

"For  the  aboHtion  of  child  labor. 

"For  such  regulations  of  the  con- 
dition of  toil  for  women  as  shall  safe- 
guard the  physical  and  moral  health 
of  the  community. 

"For  the  suppression  of  the  *  sweat- 
ing system.' 

"For  the  gradual  and  reasonable  re- 
duction of  the  hours  of  labor  to  the 
lowest  practicable  point  and  for  that 
degree  of  leisure  for  all  which  is  a  con- 
dition of  the  highest  human  life. 

"For  the  release  from  employment 
one  day  in  seven. 

"For  a  living  wage  as  a  minimum 

in  every  industry  and  for  the  highest 

wage  that  each  industry  can  afford. 

"For  the  most  equitable  division  of 
[i68] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

the  products  of  industry  that  can  ulti- 
mately be  devised. 

"For  the  suitable  provision  for  the 
old  age  of  the  workers  and  for  those 
incapacitated  by  injury. 

"For  the  abatement  of  poverty. 

"To  the  toilers  of  America  and  to 
those  who  by  organized  effort  are  seek- 
ing to  lift  the  crushing  burdens  of  the 
poor,  and  to  reduce  the  hardships  and 
uphold  the  dignity  of  labor,  this  Council 
sends  the  greeting  of  human  brother- 
hood and  the  pledge  of  sympathy  and 
of  help  in  a  cause  which  belongs  to  all 
who  follow  Christ." 

This  is  by  far  the  most  significant 

expression  that  organized  religion  has 

made  in  this  country  with  respect  to 

the  labor  question.     It  seems  to  answer 

explicitly  and   authoritatively  all   the 

questions    which    were    raised    at    the 

beginning  of  this  article.     Several  of 
[169] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

the  denominations  in  their  national 
bodies  have  reaffirmed  this  declaration. 
If  the  churches  will  stand  together  on 
this  platform  and  enforce  its  principles 
by  the  teaching  of  their  pulpits,  the 
labor  question  will  soon  be  in  a  fair 
way  of  solution. 

Assuming  the  duty  of  the  Church  to 
deal  with  this  question  honestly  and 
courageously,  one  or  two  further  sug- 
gestions may  be  ventured. 

Upon  one  outstanding  fact  the 
Church  ought  to  fix  its  attention.  In 
this  great  realm  of  labor,  the  realm  in 
which  the  largest  part  of  human  energy 
is  expended,  the  tendency  is  strong  to 
make  the  economic  fact  the  paramount 
fact,  to  keep  human  interests  subor- 
dinate. The  dollar  is  the  principal 
thing;  the  man  is  a  secondary  con- 
sideration.    If  a  man  throws  himself 

into  the  stream  of  ordinary  business, 
[170] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

adopts  its  maxims,  and  accepts  its 
ideals,  will  he  not  find  himself  un- 
consciously and  inevitably  exalting 
economic  success  above  character  or 
manhood  ? 

If  these  things  are  so,  if  such  is  the 
drift  of  the  modern  industrialism,  then, 
it  seems  to  me,  that  the  Christian 
Church  has  a  very  definite  task  upon 
its  hands,  which  is  nothing  less  than  the 
moralization  of  the  industrial  regime. 
For  if  there  is  any  meaning  in  the  ethics 
of  the  Christ  for  which  the  Church  is 
supposed  to  stand,  the  industrial  order 
which  holds  the  dollar  higher  than  the 
man  is  not  Christian  but  pagan;  there 
is  no  paganism  in  Asia  or  Africa  in  more 
deadly  hostility  to  the  Kingdom  of  the 
Christ;  and  the  first  business  of  the 
Church  is  to  storm  it  and  subdue  it  and 
revolutionize  it,  in  the  name  and  by  the 
power  of  the  Christ.  This  may  seem 
1 171] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

a  large  order,  but  the  church  which  has 
any  comprehension  of  its  mission  will 
not  dare  to  attempt  anything  less. 
Certainly  the  Church  may  expect  to 
make  its  members  believe  the  truth  that 
Mammon  is  not  the  supreme  deity,  and 
that  a  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the 
abundance  of  the  things  which  he  pos- 
sesses. And  as  soon  as  the  Church 
succeeds  in  making  its  own  members 
believe  that  these  things  are  so,  it  will 
not  be  long  before  the  rest  of  the  world 
will  begin  to  believe  them.  And  when 
the  world  begins  to  see  that  the  man  is 
worth  more  than  the  dollar,  the  central 
difficulty  in  the  labor  problem  will  be 
overcome;  the  economic  fact  will  take 
its  place  below  the  human  fact;  our  in- 
dustries will  be  organized  primarily  in 
the  interests  of  men,  and  the  long- 
standing quarrel  between  capital  and 

labor  will  be  at  an  end. 
[172] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

Another  large  obligation  of  the 
Church  to  the  laboring  class  arises 
out  of  the  need  to  which  reference 
was  made  in  a  preceding  chapter  of 
the  completion  of  our  democracy.  But 
what,  it  will  be  asked,  has  the  Church 
to  do  with  the  fulfilment  of  our  democ- 
racy? The  Church  has  nearly  every- 
thing to  do  with  it. 

Where  did  we  get  our  democracy.? 
What  is  the  basis  of  democracy?  It 
is  the  fact  of  brotherhood.  The  truth 
of  the  divine  fatherhood  and  the  hu- 
man brotherhood,  which  are  the  cen- 
tral truths  of  religion  as  taught  by 
Jesus  Christ,  are  the  germinal  truths 
of  democracy.  Whether  it  could  grow 
out  of  any  other  principle  we  may  not 
know;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  never 
has.     Outside    of    Christendom    there 


have   been   no  democracies.   \j\XJ>^^ ), 
In  the  American  State,  as  we  saw  ii 
173 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

a  former  chapter,  democracy  lies  at  the 
foundation.  Our  American  national 
life  is  based  on  brotherhood.  The 
ethics  of  Christianity  are  incorporated 
into  our  political  structure.  The  only 
part  of  our  life  in  which  the  Christian 
law  of  brotherhood  is  yet  in  large 
measure  repudiated  is  the  industrial 
organization.  This  is  the  last  of  the 
great  kingdoms  of  this  world  which 
does  not  bow  the  knee  to  Christ. 
It  must  be  conquered  by  him  and 
ruled  by  his  law.  That  is  the  busi- 
ness which  the  Christian  Church  has 
now  upon  her  hands.  The  Christian 
Church  is  here  in  the  world  to  be  the 
champion  of  brotherhood.  She  has 
no  other  message  to  speak  to  men  con- 
cerning their  relations  one  to  another. 
*'Sirs,  ye  are  brethren,"  is  her  word  to 
contending  classes;  and  among  brothers 
there  are  no  masters  and  no  slaves. 
[174] 


THE    LABOR   QUESTION 

That  is  a  truth  with  which  she  has  no 
right  to  palter,  and  the  hour  has  come 
when  she  must  speak  it  with  authority. 
If  any  one  should  say  that  the 
Church  is  not  called  to  teach  politics 
or  sociology,  the  answer  is  that  she 
is  certainly  called  to  teach  human 
brotherhood,  and  to  resist  and  oppose 
with  all  the  strength  vouchsafed  her, 
every  institution  or  custom  or  device 
of  men  which  minimizes  or  makes 
void  the  fact  of  brotherhood.  She  is 
at  least  entitled  to  offer  the  prayer 
that  her  Lord  has  taught  her,  and  to 
make  her  teaching  and  her  life  to 
conform  to  it.  When  she  opens  her 
mouth  to  say  "Our  Father  who  art 
in  heaven,"  she  must  remember  that 
that  petition  is  for  every  one  that  is 
born  of  woman,  and  she  must  under- 
stand what  it  implies.  When  she  says 
"Hallowed  be  thy  name,"  she  must 
1 175] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

not  forget  that  the  name  thus  made 
sacred  is  the  name  of  the  Father. 
When  she  says  "Thy  kingdom  come," 
she  must  remember  that  the  kingdom 
for  which  she  prays  is  the  kingdom  of 
the  Father  —  the  kingdom  in  which 
none  are  subjects,  but  all  are  brothers. 
That  is  certainly  her  message.  She 
has  made  emperors  and  kings  and 
Kaisers  understand  it;  now,  she  has 
a  bigger  task  on  hand,  to  make  Mam- 
mon understand  it.  It  will  cost  her 
something  to  do  this;  she  will  lose 
friends;  but  she  has  some  friends  that 
she  can  afford  to  lose  that  she  may 
win  the  friendship  of  the  poor  of  this 
world  who  are  rich  in  faith  and  heirs 
of  the  kingdom  which  God  has  pre- 
pared for  them  that  love  him.  And 
it  is  time  for  her  to  face  the  "Dark 
Tower,"   "blind  as  the  fool's  heart," 

garrisoned  by  greed  and  injustice,  and 
[176] 


THE    LABOR    QUESTION 

to  set  the  slug-horn  to  her  hps  and 
blow:  **The  day  of  the  common  man 
has  come.  Christ  has  redeemed  him; 
the  nations  of  the  earth  have  enfran- 
chised him;  it  is  time  for  you,  captains 
of  industry,  to  make  him  free  of  your 
domain.  All  he  asks  is  to  be  clothed 
with  the  rights  of  a  man.  That  you 
dare  not  deny  him.  That,  in  the  name 
of  Christ  our  Master,  we  claim  fori 
him;  and  we  will  never  be  silent  until,  1 
in  the  whole  kingdom  of  industry,  that 
claim  is  conceded  and  that  right  is 
guaranteed."  - 

And  when  she  has  thus  delivered  her 
soul  by  such  fidelity  to  the  employers, 
she  ought  to  have  a  faithful  word  for 
the  working  men  in  their  organizations. 
Would  it  not  be  something  like  this: 

"The     Church     has     been     tardy, 
brother  men,  in  her  recognition  of  her 
obligation    to    speak    the    truth    with 
[177] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

respect  to  this  great  matter  which  so 

much  concerns  you,  but  she  has  found 

her    voice.     Listen    and    judge.     She 

would  be  faithless  if  she  did  not  claim 

for  you  the  rights  of  freemen,  and  the 

power  to  maintain  for  yourselves  these 

rights    in    the    kingdom    of   industry; 

but  she  would  be  false  if  she  did  not 

tell    you    that    this    enfranchisement 

in    the   industrial    realm    carries   with 

it  heavy  responsibilities.     Democracy 

means    brotherhood;     and    when    you 

set  up  your  industrial  democracy  you 

must   not  forget   that    it  means   that 

you  must  act  brotherly,  not  only  to 

the  members  of  your  union,  but  also 

and  equally  to  your  employer.     He  is 

your  brother,  and  every  loyalty  that 

you  owe  to  the  union  you  owe  also  to 

him,  not  only  as  individuals,  but  also 

as  an  organization. 

"A  trade-union  can  behave  greedily 
[178] 


THE   LABOR   QUESTION 

treacherously,  unjustly;  and  men  in 
crowds  are  often  tempted  to  do  things 
that  no  single  man  of  them  would 
consent  to  for  an  instant.  You  must 
learn,  every  man  of  you,  to  stand  on 
your  own  feet,  and  stand  in  all  your 
dealings  with  your  employer  for  the 
things  that  are  right  and  fair  and 
honorable  between  man  and  man. 
Otherwise  your  industrial  enfranchise- 
ment is  a  sham  and  will  bring  a  curse. 
The  industrial  democracy  holds  in  it 
the  promise  and  potency  of  a  pros- 
perous and  happy  nation;  it  holds 
also  in  it  the  possibilities  of  pande- 
monium —  confusion  and  strife  and 
misery.  We  mean  that  you  shall  be 
free.  We  pray  you,  as  if  God  were 
speaking  by  us,  to  use  your  freedom 
soberly  and  righteously  —  never  for 
the  profit  of  a  class,  always  for  the 
common  good." 

[179] 


APPENDIXES 


APPENDIX  I 
THE  CASE  AGAINST  THE  UNIONS 

IN  letters  and  newspaper  comments 
which  have  come  into  my  hands  while 
these  chapters  have  been  appearing  in 
The  Outlook^  a  few  points  have  been 
raised  which  I  wish  to  consider.  Let  me 
first  thank  the  many  kind  readers  who 
have  written  to  express  their  approval  of 
the  positions  taken.  Some  of  the  most 
cordial  expressions  have  come  from  em- 
ployers of  labor,  and  some  of  the  most 
censorious  from  those  who  claim  to  be 
working  men.  One  letter,  signed  "  A  Work- 
ingman,"  thus  expostulates: 

"In  your  case  against  the  labor  unions 
I  find  you  very  small  indeed,  for  you  are 
taking  up  the  case  of  the  rich  against  the 
poor.  For  Christ's  sake  let  the  poor  alone. 
They  have  trouble  enough.  ...  It  seems 
to  me  you  do  not  need  the  money,  or  are 
you  doing  it  for  the  money.''  You,  as  a 
1 183] 


APPENDIXES 


preacher  of  the  gospel,  should  follow  Christ, 
and  he  was  kind  to  the  poor."  It  is  prob- 
able that  this  reader,  like  many  others, 
had  contented  himself  with  reading  the 
title  of  the  article.  It  is  because  there 
are  too  many  unionists  of  this  type  that 
we  have  so  much  trouble  with  the  unions. 

From  a  letter  I  take  these  questions: 
"Why  does  violence  cease  instantly  that 
a  strike  is  called  off  by  union  authorities,  if 
such  action  is  almost  solely,  as  you  suggest, 
perpetrated  by  outsiders,  the  lawless  ele- 
ment, without  connivance  of  or  instiga- 
tion by  union  men.^  If  such  acts  can 
be  promptly  stopped,  why  can  they  not 
be  prevented,  if  opposition  to  them  is 
genuine.? 

"If  the  quotation  from  John  Mitchell 
condemning  violence  and  murder  is  more 
than  a  recognition  that  they  are  harmful 
to  the  cause  and  impolitic,  why  do  not 
unions  that  he  controls  aid  in  bringing  to 
justice  and  trial  members  whom  they  know 
perpetrate  such  acts.? 

"Is  it  not  true  that  union  men  know 
themselves  to  be  safe,  as  far  as  fellow 
members  are  concerned,  no  matter  what 
[184] 


APPENDIXES 


acts  of  violence  they  commit  against  a 
non-union  man  or  a  'scab'?  Then,  is 
not  every  one  of  them  particeps  criminis? 
When  union  officials  honestly  do  what  they 
claim  to  the  world  to  do  in  the  repression 
of  violence,  then  these  acts  will  almost 
disappear." 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  violence 
in  all  such  cases  is  perpetrated  largely 
by  those  who  are  in  sympathy  with  the 
strikers,  though  not  a  few  of  the  rioters 
are  people  who  are  fond  of  disorder,  and 
who  make  the  strike  an  opportunity  of 
lawlessness.  When  the  strike  is  called  off, 
their  excuse  is  removed. 

But  there  is  no  doubt  that  union  men 
are  quite  too  tolerant  of  such  disorder,  and 
that  by  refusing  to  take  vigorous  measures 
to  prevent  it,  they  often  incur  a  fearful 
responsibility.  Here  is  the  weak  point  in 
their  case.  Many  of  them  are  too  willing 
that  bloody  and  desperate  deeds  should 
be  done  in  their  interest.  Many  of  them 
have  too  much  faith  in  carnal  warfare  and 
too  little  in  reason  and  patience  and  good 
will.  Yet  I  should  be  far  from  believing 
that  "every  one  of  them"  is  consciously 
[185] 


APPENDIXES 


or  intentionally  a  partaker  in  these  crimes 
of  violence;  nor  is  the  sincerity  of  John 
Mitchell  and  those  of  like  mind  to  be  im- 
pugned because  their  followers  sometimes 
trample  on  their  counsels.  A  good  many 
pastors  find  their  church  members  con- 
stantly flouting  the  truth  they  try  to 
teach  and  doing  things  for  which  they 
do  not  wish  to  be  held  responsible.  It  is 
not  always  quite  clear  that  in  such  cases 
a  minister  ought  to  resign  his  charge;  he 
may  hope  that  by  patience  and  fidelity  he 
can  bring  these  ofl"enders  to  a  better  mind. 
The  same  rule  applies  to  labor  leaders. 

I  quite  agree  with  my  correspondent, 
however,  in  saying  that  union  officials 
could  put  an  end  to  most  of  this  violence 
if  they  were  determined  to  do  it;  and  the 
fact  that  it  is  not  done  is  a  heavy  count 
against  them.  And  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  attitude  of  the  labor  leaders  in 
the  recent  cases  of  the  accused  dynamiters 
leaves  much  to  be  desired.  Organized  labor 
cannot  stand  in  an  equivocal  position 
before  crimes  of  this  nature.  Somebody 
has  committed  each  one  of  these  dastardly 
crimeSj  and  no  people  in  this  country  have 
[i86] 


APPENDIXES 


so  much  interest  in  getting  the  miscreants 
detected  and  punished  as  the  leaders  of 
organized  labor. 

With  respect  to  the  petty  and  puerile 
restrictions  upon  work,  here  is  the  testi- 
mony of  a  journalist: 

"In  the  course  of  the  holiday  advertising 
rush  one  of  the  evening  papers  found  it- 
self receiving  more  business  than  could 
be  accommodated  in  its  composing  room, 
which  was  then  somewhat  limited  in 
equipment,  and  the  matrix  of  a  full-page 
advertisement  was  secured  from  the  morn- 
ing paper  in  which  it  had  appeared  that 
morning,  payment  for  same  being  duly 
made  to  the  proprietor  of  the  morning 
paper.  This  advertisement  appeared  in 
the  evening  edition,  the  only  additional 
labor  involved  being  the  casting  of  a  plate 
from  the  matrix.  Happening  in  the  office 
the  next  morning,  which  was  Sunday,  I 
found  a  couple  of  advertisement  setters 
busy  in  the  composing  room,  an  unusual 
thing  for  that  office.  Investigation  showed 
that  these  two  printers  were  at  work  on 
the  advertisement  which  had  appeared  the 
evening  before.  This  was  set  up  in  the 
[187] 


APPENDIXES 


regular  way,  proofs  taken  and  read,  cor- 
rections made,  and  everything  put  in 
readiness  for  the  stereotyping  room,  after 
which  the  page  was  torn  down  and  the 
type  distributed.  It  seems  that  a  ruling 
of  the  Typographical  Union  makes  such  a 
procedure  necessary  whenever  there  is  an 
interchange  of  matrices  among  offices,  the 
object  naturally  being  to  secure  the  maxi- 
mum of  work.  Here  was  a  case  where  two 
of  the  best  compositors  in  the  office  spent 
the  better  part  of  Sunday,  probably  at 
time-and-a-half,  in  producing  an  article 
which  was  absolutely  worthless,  merely 
because  of  an  arbitrary  union  regulation. 
To  me  it  seems  a  practise  with  less  excuse 
than  the  limitation  of  a  workman's  daily 
output." 

There  ought  to  be  statesmanship  enough 
in  a  union  as  intelligent  as  the  Typo- 
graphical Union  to  put  an  end  to  this  sort 
of  thing.  The  slight  economic  advantage 
which  the  union  secures  by  such  a  rule  is 
offset,  ten  times  over,  by  the  disgust  and 
ill  will  which  such  a  measure  is  bound  to 
excite,  not  only  in  the  employers,  but  in  all 
just-minded  people. 

[i88] 


APPENDIXES 


The  following  letter  from  the  editor  of 
The  International  Molders^  Journal  will 
help  to  correct  any  wrong  impression  which 
is  made  by  the  statement  in  the  text.  It 
is  printed  in  full: 

*^  Cincinnati,  March  17,  191 1. 

"I  have  just  finished  reading  your  first 
article  on  the  case  against  the  labor  union 
and  have  already  secured  the  permission 
of  The  Outlook  to  reproduce  your  most 
recent  article  on  trade-unions  in  that 
publication. 

"I  have  read  both  articles  with  much 
pleasure  and  satisfaction,  for  they  indicate 
a  comprehensive  and  unbiased  view  of  the 
problems  which  we  loosely  term  'the  labor 
question.' 

"I  was,  however,  surprised  and  disap- 
pointed with  the  reference  which  you  make 
on  page  467  of  the  March  issue  of  The 
Outlook  relative  to  the  trade-union  atti- 
tude towards  prison  labor.  Let  me  say 
in  a  candid,  also  in  a  most  friendly  spirit, 
that  you  have  utterly  failed  to  convey 
the  true  attitude  of  the  trade-union  to- 
wards prison  labor.  As  an  executive  offi- 
[189] 


APPENDIXES 


cer  of  the  International  Molders'  Union 
for  twelve  years  and  as  one  who  has  fre- 
quently appeared  before  the  committees 
of  legislative  bodies  on  contract  convict 
labor  bills,  I  should  be  in  a  position  to  know 
what  the  trade-union  attitude  is.  Let  me 
state  it  briefly. 

"  I  do  not  know  of  a  single  intelligent 
trade-unionist  or  trade-union  official  who 
favors  abolishing  convict  labor.  The  op- 
position of  the  trade-union  movement  is 
directed  towards  the  kind  of  labor  which 
the  convict  performs,  and  the  method 
through  which  this  labor  enters  into  direct 
and  most  injurious  competition  with  that 
of  the  workman. 

"Our  opposition  is  against  the  contract 
convict  labor  system  through  which  the 
labor  of  the  convict  is  made  to  result  in 
profit  to  the  contractor,  the  convict's  wel- 
fare and  reformation  being  a  secondary 
and  frequently  negligible  factor,  the  prime 
motive  being  that  of  any  practical  business 
man  —  the  making  of  money,  with  this 
advantage  that  the  convict  can  be  driven 
to  a  physical  limit  which  is  impossible  in 
the  case  of  free  labor. 

[  190  ] 


APPENDIXES 


"In  the  shirt  making  industry,  shoe  ma- 
king industry,  saddlery,  and  several  others, 
convict  labor  has  ruined  the  industry  for 
the  free  workers.  In  my  own  trade  the 
hollow  ware  made  by  contract  convict 
labor  has  driven  the  hollow  ware  business 
entirely  out  of  the  foundries  all  over  the 
country.  I  am  not  beyond  the  mark  when 
I  inform  you  that  there  are  not  in  this 
country  to-day  one  hundred  molders  en- 
gaged in  making  cast-iron  kettles,  spiders, 
and  other  cast-iron  kitchen  hollow  ware. 
Let  me  give  you  an  illustration. 

"With  other  trade-unionists  in  this  state 
I  was  active  in  endeavoring  to  have  a  new 
penitentiary  built  in  Columbus  by  con- 
victs. If  this  is  done,  it  will  throw  out  of 
employment  the  free  labor  which  would 
be  employed  if  the  labor  was  not  done  by 
convicts.  Here,  then,  are  a  number  of 
brick  layers,  masons,  etc.  who  would  be 
prevented  from  securing  work  on  a  new 
penitentiary. 

"This,  however,  is  not  a  serious  matter 
and  is  one  against  which  we  can  make  no 
objection.  Let  us  assume  that  the  con- 
tract convict  labor  system  still  obtained 
[191I 


APPENDIXES 


in  Ohio  and,  instead  of  the  convicts  being 
contracted  to  hardware,  hollow  ware,  and 
other  prison  labor  contract  manufacturers, 
they  were  contracted  to  building  contract- 
ors and  used  in  the  city  of  Columbus  to 
erect  buildings:  they  would  then  present 
an  entirely  different  form  of  competition 
with  free  labor,  and  the  contractor,  paying 
the  state  from  ^.75  to  $1.00  a  day  for  the 
convict  labor,  would  speedily  force  con- 
tractors employing  free  labor  to  meet  this 
competition  or  go  out  of  business.  The 
result  of  employing  convicts  in  the  erection 
of  buildings  in  Ohio  under  the  direction  of 
contract  convict  contractors  would  not 
only  throw  a  certain  number  of  building 
trade  workmen  out  of  employment,  but, 
in  addition  and  of  far  greater  importance, 
would  force  a  reduction  in  wages  on  all 
of  the  free  workmen  in  the  building  trades. 
"I  have  never  yet  seen  a  statement  em- 
anating from  the  rank  and  file  of  the  offi- 
cers of  the  trade-unions  advocating  idleness 
for  convicts.  On  the  other  hand,  I  do  know 
that  they  are  lending  their  influence  to 
have  the  convict  placed  at  such  occupations 
as  road  making,  farming,  etc.,  which  would 
1 192] 


APPENDIXES 


enable  the  convict  to  redeem  himself  if  he 
so  desired  and  nature  had  not  cursed  him 
too  heavily  with  moral  deformity  at  his 
birth  to  make  this  impossible. 

Deeply  appreciative  of  the  interest 
which  you  have  taken  in  the  workman's 
efforts  to  improve  his  standard  of  living,  I 
remain, 

"Respectfully  yours, 

"John   P,   Frey, 
"Editor." 


[193 


APPENDIX  II 
THE  REASON  FOR  THE  UNIONS 

SOME  complaint  has  been  made  of  my 
representation  of  the  attitude  of  the 
average  employer  toward  unionism.  No 
sweeping  statements  are  made  in  the  text; 
I  have  asserted  that  there  is  "a  goodly 
number"  of  employers  "whose  works  show 
that  they  do  believe  in  the  unions,  and 
who  are  seeking  to  enter  into  cordial  co- 
operation with  them."  I  have,  however, 
expressed  the  opinion  that  "most  em- 
ployers" qualify  their  faith  in  unionism  by 
statements  which  imply  that  the  unions  in 
which  they  believe  are  not  those  which 
assert  the  right  of  the  me;i  to  have  a  voice 
in  the  determination  of  wages  and  condi- 
tions of  labor.  Just  what  proportion  of 
American  employers  frankly  concede  to 
the  unions  this  right  of  collective  bargain- 
ing it  would  be  impossible  to  say;  my  own 
impression,  derived  from  pretty  large  ac- 
[194] 


APPENDIXES 


quaintance  and  observation,  is  that  it  is 
not  large,  and  that  it  is  not,  at  present, 
increasing.  The  unions  are,  indeed,  toler- 
ated in  many  industries,  but  the  majority 
of  employers  who  tolerate  them  would 
abolish  them  if  they  could.  This  attitude 
is  due,  in  large  part,  to  the  abuses  which 
we  have  considered  in  the  previous  chapter, 
and  also  to  the  fact  that  employers,  as  a 
tlass,  have  not  carefully  considered  what 
would  be  the  consequence  of  abolishing 
the  unions.  I  am  far  from  believing  that 
the  majority  of  employers  intend  such 
consequences  as  are  here  depicted;  if  they 
clearly  saw  what  their  policy  must  result 
in,  most  of  them  would  be  ready  to 
reconsider. 

Most  of  the  employers  who  say  that 
they  believe  in  the  unions  are  firm  in  their 
maintenance  of  the  open  shop,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  regard  the  non-union  element 
in  an  open  shop  in  any  other  light  than  as 
an  ally  of  the  employer  in  his  resistance  to 
unionism. 

Many  of  the  employers  who  tolerate 
unions  refuse  to  recognize  them.  They 
will  consult  zvith  their  men  on  any  question 
[iQSl 


APPENDIXES 


concerning  the  interests  of  the  men,  but 
they  will  have  no  dealings  with  representa- 
tives of  the  unions.  Such  employers  are, 
of  course,  opposed  to  the  arbitration  of 
industrial  disputes.  They  "have  nothing 
to  arbitrate." 

Now,  as  has  been  said,  I  know  of  no  way 
of  finding  out  how  large  a  proportion  of 
the  employers  of  labor  maintain  this  un- 
friendly attitude  toward  the  unions.  That 
there  is  "a  goodly  number"  of  those  who 
are  ready  to  enter  into  cordial  and  coopera- 
tive relations  with  them  I  have  admitted. 
I  wish  that  that  number  might  increase, 
and  I  am  persuaded  that  many  employers 
who  now  antagonize  them  would  change 
their  minds  if  they  would  look  a  little 
farther  ahead.  This  is  what,  in  this 
chapter,  I  have  been  trying  to  enable 
them  to  do. 

With  those  who  have  written  to  express 
the  opinion  that  the  number  of  employers 
who  are  ready  to  cooperate  with  organized 
labor  is  larger  than  my  estimate  I  should 
be  glad  to  agree.  In  such  a  spirit  of 
friendly  cooperation  is  our  hope  of  peace 
and  welfare.  But  I  confess  that  the  pros- 
[196] 


APPENDIXES 


pect  of  such  an  amicable  adjustment  of 
this  great  dispute  is  not  so  bright  as  I  could 
wish.  Sometimes  it  looks  as  though  the 
chasm  which  divides  the  two  classes  were 
growing  too  wide  and  too  deep  to  be  bridged 
or  filled  up,  and  that  nothing  could  avert 
the  struggle  in  which  the  existing  indus- 
trial order  must  be  overthrown.  It  is  in 
the  sincere  belief  that  such  an  industrial 
revolution,  in  the  present  state  of  public 
intelligence,  would  be  disastrous  to  the 
commonwealth,  that  these  pages  have 
been  written. 


[197] 


APPENDIX  III 
INDUSTRY   AND    DEMOCRACY 

THE  practical  difficulty  of  such  a  situ- 
ation as  that  which  is  imagined  in 
the  text,  where  the  employer  frankly  pro- 
poses recognition  of  the  union  and  co- 
operation with  it,  arises  from  the  action 
of  national  organizations  of  labor.  The 
national  body  sometimes  undertakes  to  en- 
force, by  a  strike,  demands  which  the  local 
union  would  not  be  inclined  to  make,  and 
the  cooperation  between  the  employer  and 
the  local  union  Is  ruptured  by  the  inter- 
ference of  the  national  organization.  This 
is  possible,  however,  largely  because  the 
relations  between  the  employers  and  the 
local  unions  are,  in  most  cases,  distant  or 
unfriendly.  If  these  relations  were,  In 
the  great  majority  of  cases,  amicable  and 
satisfactory,  the  power  of  the  national 
organization  to  disturb  them  would  be 
greatly  reduced.  And  nothing  Is  more  to 
[198] 


APPENDIXES 


be  desired,  in  the  interest  both  of  em- 
ployer and  of  employed,  than  that  the 
local  bond  be  made  so  strong  that  outside 
influences  cannot  easily  disturb  it.  Just 
as  home-rule  is  the  best  policy  in  muni- 
cipal government,  and  the  self-governing 
forces  of  the  local  community  ought  to  be 
strengthened  in  every  practicable  way,  so 
the  effort  of  the  intelligent  employer  should 
be  to  keep  himself  in  such  relations  with 
the  labor  organizations,  that  the  most  of 
the  questions  arising  shall  be  settled  at 
home. 


[199] 


APPENDIX  IV 

CROSS-LIGHTS  AND  COUNTER- 
CLAIMS 

WHAT  about  labor  organizations 
among  government  employees? 
What  are  their  rights  and  obligations? 
Should  they  become  affiliated  with  the 
American  Federation  of  Organized  Labor 
and  subject  to  its  control?  Have  they  a 
right  to  strike  for  higher  wages  and  better 
conditions  of  service?  These  questions 
have  already  arisen  in  some  of  the  depart- 
ments at  Washington,  and  it  is  highly 
important  that  they  be  promptly  and 
thoroughly  discussed  and  definitely  settled. 
For  my  own  part,  I  can  see  no  justifica- 
tion for  any  organization  of  government 
employees  for  ordinary  trade-union  pur- 
poses. It  may  be  lawful  to  organize 
mutual  benefit  societies  among  the  gov- 
ernment employees,  but  not  associations 

whose  purpose  it  is  to  enforce  their  de- 
[  200  1 


APPENDIXES 


mands  by  striking.  A  stril%;e,  to  make 
the  best  of  it,  is  a  species  of  warfare;  and 
it  would  be  a  political  absurdity  to  grant 
the  right  of  government  employees  to 
organize  for  warfare  against  the  govern- 
ment. The  Constitution  defines  treason 
as  levying  war  against  the  United  States, 
and  any  association  of  men  which  proposes 
by  force  to  resist,  or  by  combination  to 
interrupt  the  operation  of  the  laws,  incurs 
the  condemnation  of  that  just  provision. 
The  right  of  the  organized  employees  of 
any  private  person  or  corporation  to  strike 
for  improved  conditions  arises  out  of  the 
fact  that  the  employed  have  no  other 
way  of  enforcing  their  claim.  There  is  a 
dispute  between  employer  and  employed 
about  wages  or  hours  of  work;  there  is 
no  tribunal  to  which  it  can  be  referred; 
the  employer  refuses  arbitration;  the  only 
remedy  of  the  employed  is  to  refuse  to 
work,  and  thus  to  interrupt,  so  far  as  possi- 
ble, the  industrial  operation,  and  cause  such 
a  reduction  in  the  profits  of  the  employer 
that  he  shall  be  forced  to  accede  to  their 
demand.  The  scale  of  wages  against 
which  the  men  are  striking  is  one  which 
[201] 


APPENDIXES 


they  have  no  voice  in  fixing;  it  is  an  ulti- 
matum offered  to  them  which  they  can 
take  or  leave;  they  exercise  their  right  in 
unitedly  refusing  to  take  it. 

But  the  case  of  the  government  employee 
is  radically  different  from  the  case  of  the 
employee  of  a  private  person  or  corpora- 
tion. In  the  first  place  the  government 
employee  is  a  citizen;  he  is  himself  a  re- 
sponsible member  of  the  government;  he 
has  had,  or  ought  to  have  had,  a  voice 
In  fixing  the  terms  and  conditions  under 
which  he  is  working;  if  they  are  not  satis- 
factory he  has  the  privilege  and  the  power 
of  joining  with  his  other  fellow  citizens  in 
making  them  satisfactory.  There  is,  in 
his  case,  an  existing  tribunal  to  which  the 
whole  matter  can  be  referred,  and  that  is 
the  will  of  the  people.  To  that  tribunal 
let  him  make  his  appeal,  and  submit  to  its 
decision.  It  may  take  time  to  secure  the 
popular  action  by  which  his  conditions 
will  be  improved,  but  he  has  no  right  to 
seek  redress  in  any  other  way.  A  strike 
of  government  employees  is  the  attempt 
of  a  class  of  citizens  to  Interrupt,  In  their 
own  interest,  the  operations  of  the  govern- 
f  202  1 


APPENDIXES 


ment,  upon  which  the  comfort  and  welfare 
of  the  whole  people  depend.  No  class  of 
citizens  can  reasonably  claim  the  right  to 
do  any  such  thing. 

When  the  French  employees  on  the 
government  railways  undertook  to  enforce 
their  demands  by  striking,  Premier  Briand, 
a  Socialist,  promptly  "called  the  men  to 
the  colors."  It  was  a  sharp  reminder  that 
patriotic  men  in  the  employ  of  the  nation 
cannot  form  any  combinations  of  their  own 
to  resist  the  national  authority.  That 
savors   of   mutiny. 

One  reason  why  some  of  us  are  ready  to 
have  all  the  public  service  industries  pass 
under  the  control  of  the  government  is 
our  wish  to  have  them  placed  upon  a  basis 
where  industrial  war  will  be  impossible. 
If  the  right  to  strike  is  to  be  asserted  by 
combinations  of  government  employees, 
that  advantage  will  be  lost,  and  the  last 
state  of  our  industrial  conflict  will  be  worse 
than  the  first. 

Such  being  the  case,  it  is,  of  course, 
highly  improper  for  associations  of  govern- 
ment employees  to  affiliate  with  the  Ameri- 
can Federation  of  Labor  or  any  other 
[203I 


APPENDIXES 


organization  which  undertakes  to  deter- 
mine for  them  the  terms  and  conditions 
under  which  they  must  perform  their  ser- 
vice. They  might  as  well  put  themselves 
under  the  protection  of  Canada  or  Mexico. 


[204] 


APPENDIX  V 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  LABOR 
QUESTION 

IN  some  of  the  letters  from  employers 
the  question  has  been  raised,  with  some 
acerbity,  as  to  the  right  of  a  minister  of 
the  gospel  to  have  any  opinion,  or  publicly 
to  express  any  opinion,  upon  the  Labor 
Question.  "It  would  be  impertinent  for 
us,"  these  objectors  say,  for  substance, 
"to  volunteer  any  suggestions  about  your 
professional  work,  and  it  is  equally  im- 
pertinent for  you  to  offer  counsels  to  us 
about  the  management  of  our  business." 

I  think  that  a  little  discrimination  is 
needed  just  here.  With  respect  to  some 
parts  of  my  professional  work  it  would 
not,  probably,  be  modest  for  my  friends, 
the  captains  of  industry,  to  venture  on 
criticisms.  Upon  the  authorship  of  the 
Pentateuch  or  the  interpretation  of  the 
Athanasian  Creed  they  might  naturally 
[205] 


APPENDIXES 


hesitate  to  differ  with  me.  But  there  are 
a  great  many  matters  of  which  it  is  my 
business  to  speak,  with  respect  to  which 
they  might,  with  entire  propriety,  chal- 
lenge my  teaching.  If  I  should  inculcate 
the  doctrine  that  children  should  not  be 
required  to  obey  their  parents,  but  should 
be  permitted  to  do  as  they  please  in  all 
things;  or  if  I  should  tell  servants  that 
they  might  justifiably  steal  from  their 
masters  if  they  would  only  put  their  plun- 
der into  the  contribution  box,  my  friends, 
the  captains  of  industry,  would  have  a 
perfect  right  publicly  to  find  fault  with 
my  professional  work,  and  try  to  bring 
me  to  a  better  mind.  There  are  certain 
very  important  parts  of  my  professional 
work  as  a  Christian  teacher,  on  which  all 
intelligent  men  have  a  right  to  form  and 
express  opinions. 

Similarly  there  are  many  parts  of  the 
work  of  a  captain  of  industry,  on  which  it 
would  be  absurd  for  me  to  ofi"er  any  sug- 
gestions. I  know  nothing  at  all  about  the 
manufacture  of  automobiles,  or  the  pro- 
duction of  woolen  cloth,  or  the  marketing 
of  coal,  or  the  management  of  credits;  and 

f206l 


APPENDIXES 


it  would  be  a  grotesque  impertinence  for 
me  to  try  to  tell  any  business  man  how  to 
manage  these  parts  of  his  business.  I 
have  not  attempted  any  such  thing. 

But  there  are  certain  human  relation- 
ships which  these  captains  of  industry  sus- 
tain to  the  men  in  their  employ  about 
which  I  have  some  knowledge.  It  is  a 
large  part  of  my  business  to  find  out  how 
human  beings  can  live  together  peaceably, 
usefully,  and  prosperously.  The  teachings 
of  Jesus  Christ,  which  it  is  my  professional 
business  to  understand  and  enforce,  are 
largely  concerned  with  this  very  thing. 
The  principles  of  this  teaching  apply  as 
directly  to  industrial  society  as  to  any* 
other  form  of  human  association.  It  is 
my  business  to  make  this  application.  If 
I  failed  to  do  so,  I  should  be  unfaithful  to 
my  commission.  This  Is  all  that  I  have 
ever  undertaken  to  do.  And  when,  in 
doing  so,  I  am  admonished  that  I  am 
intruding  into  interests  with  which  I  have 
no  concern,  I  must  plead  not  guilty  to 
the  accusation. 

It  is  open  to  any  one  to  say  that  the 
principles  of  Christianity  do  not  furnish 
[207] 


APPENDIXES 


the  true  and  adequate  rule  of  human  con- 
duct; that  it  is  impossible  to  apply  them 
to  the  relations  of  men  in  economic  society. 
One  who  thinks  so  is,  of  course,  justified 
in  objecting  to  the  teachings  of  this  book. 
A  man  may  believe  with  Nietzsche  that  the 
religion  of  good  will  is  a  pestilent  distem- 
per; that  the  ideal  man  is  hard-hearted, 
unscrupulous,  merciless.  To  those  who 
hold  any  opinion  akin  to  this,  the  entire 
argument  of  this  book  would  appear  to 
be,  not  only  futile,  but  mischievous.  It 
has  been  assumed,  however,  in  all  this 
argument,  that  the  principles  of  our  Chris- 
tian civilization  are  valid  principles;  that 
Christ's  summary  of  the  moral  law  is  a 
true  and  adequate  statement  of  the  funda- 
mental human  obligation.  It  is  also  as- 
sumed that  it  is  the  business  of  the 
Christian  Church  to  apply  this  law  to  all 
human  relations;  and  that  the  Christian 
minister  has  no  choice  about  making  this 
application  to  industrial  society  as  to  other 
forms  of  society. 

Industrial   society  has   a  technical   and 
mechanical  side,  with  which  the  Christian 
minister  has  nothing  to  do;  but  it  has  also 
[2o8l 


APPENDIXES 


a  human  side  with  which  he  has  everything 
to  do.  The  one  supreme  question  about 
industrial  society  is  the  question  what  kind 
of  men  it  is  producing,  both  in  the  shop 
and  in  the  counting  room;  and  what  kind 
of  social  relations  it  is  cultivating  between 
employers  and  employed.  If  the  classes 
brought  together  in  industrial  society  are 
all  becoming  better,  happier,  stronger, 
more  hopeful,  more  contented,  and  if  the 
spirit  of  friendship  and  cooperation  is  bind- 
ing them  together  more  and  more  closely, 
the  Christian  Church  may  feel  that  she  is 
fulfilling  her  function;  but  if  conditions  in 
all  respects  the  reverse  of  this  are  appear- 
ing, it  will  be  well  for  her  to  look  well  to 
her  ways  and  see  wherein  she  is  failing  of 
her  duty. 


209] 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFC^ta  'JRRAP^ 
To 


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t. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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